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Rockefeller, John D. (1839–1937)

U.S. industrialist and philanthropist

One of the most influential leaders in history, John Davison Rockefeller pioneered the corporate organizational form that characterizes modern big business. His Standard Oil Company, unrivaled in economic power, not only fostered American global economic preeminence—and his personal fortune as the wealthiest American ever—but demanded a reassessment in the relationship between American business and elective government. A devoutly religious man, Rockefeller also set an unmatched standard in philanthropy, his peerless generosity balancing a reputation as the quintessential ruthless “robber baron” industrialist, or depending upon one's view, the exemplary capitalist statesman. This dichotomy creates a cultural icon transcending the man and his time.

The Standard Dichotomy

Trying to comprehend John D. Rockefeller is an exercise in polarities. He was born 8 July 1839, the son of an absentee, bigamist father—literally, a “snake oil” salesman—an opportunist interested in making fast cash regardless of legitimacy, who appeared in his son's life only intermittently but flamboyantly; and a pious Baptist mother devoted to her church and to training her children in biblical principles, by necessity committed to austere living, strict discipline, and frugality. Such polarity profoundly defined Rockefeller, characterizing his leadership. On the one hand, he was a devout, exemplary Baptist, on the other a seeming tyrant lacking in fair play, openness, and honesty. Having a compulsion for secrecy, he was a wizard at keeping his Standard Oil empire hidden from the public and competitors; nevertheless, he became notorious at the hands of muckraker journalists and renowned for his great philanthropy. He avoided the press, yet advanced the nascent public relations industry in an effort to recreate his unfavorable image. Reflecting the thrift and strictness of his mother, he relentlessly focused on the smallest details of his business, making endless improvements to cut waste, personally overseeing every step of the production process; yet he had the capacity to see the “big picture,” to envision and develop the massive corporate organization that would change business history.

Critics might denounce his Christian piety as hypocrisy and a veil for greed, but a fair appraisal must acknowledge his faith was genuine—he once considered the ministry as his vocation, dissuaded only by his family's dire financial condition. Still, he devoted much money, time, and energy to his church. Indeed, Rockefeller saw God as an ally and his justification. For him, big business could be reconciled with Christianity; his company could even be seen in missionary terms, for as he put it, the Standard, built on the rocks of “faith and work,” was “the salvation of the oil business,” the “Moses” who set the captives free, the ally of the consumer. His portrayal as a social Darwinist is imprecise; rather, in Rockefeller's eyes, Standard Oil was the remedy to social Darwinism's amoral and ruinous competition: “The struggle for the survival of the fittest,” he wrote, would be replaced by Standard's “doctrines of cooperation” (Chernow 1998, 154).

Refining Leadership

Rockefeller's story is divisible into five periods, each refining his remarkable leadership. In the first (1855–1865), the young and characteristically energetic Rockefeller, armed with a bookkeeping education from a Cleveland business college, went doorto-door until he landed a job with Hewitt & Tuttle, commission merchants and produce shippers, as an assistant bookkeeper on 26 September 1855—a day he would thereafter celebrate as “Job Day.” A scrupulously honest and hard worker, he bought a nickel ledger with his first paycheck, which he called “Ledger A,” in which he dutifully recorded every penny earned, each one spent, each given to charity. He utilized his experience at Hewitt & Tuttle to venture into a partnership in 1859 with Maurice Clark as agricultural produce wholesalers. Rockefeller traveled extensively, aggressively drumming up business throughout Ohio. His success encouraged romance; in 1864 he married Laura “Cete” Spelman, the daughter of deeply religious abolitionists active in the Underground Railroad.

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