John D Rockefeller Biography

John D. Rockefeller was the founder of the Standard Oil Company, and he became once of the richest men and a philanthropist. He was luckily born into some great circumstances of oil business in 1863 by investing in a refinery. In the 1870’s Rockefeller than came up with the functions of the Standard Oil, this helped him climb to the top taking over about 90% of the U.S. refineries and pipelines. There were many thoughts going around about Rockefeller, he was being accused of doing some not so morally right activates. They thought that he was greedy with the pricing and colluding with railroads to get rid of his competitors in the market. In 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court found a Standard Oil violation with the anti-trust laws and wanted it to
disappear. (cite) Throughout Rockefeller life he made many philanthropic donations to many different causes adding up to about $500 million dollars.
Rockefeller had several partners that helped him with the entry of the oil industry. The first place that took place was in Cleveland, OH where they all invested in the refinery. He than asked some of his partners to barrow some money so that he could buy out some of his partners so that he was able to take control of the refinery. Since the industry in Ohio was booming in 1870 he founded the Standard Oil Company of Ohio. His younger brother William and partner Henry Flagler and some other partners, John became the president and largest shareholder. Since the Standard Oil Industry gained patent in the industry by buying competing refineries and some other companies that were developing within the same market around the world. Those participating companies were than combined into the Standard Oil Trust. One way to get rid of the economies, the Standard Oil created their own oil barrels; they employed their own scientists to help them figure out new uses for the petroleum by products. With the wealth and success that he became a huge target to the public. Over time due to the Ohio Supreme Court it caused the Standard Oil Company to dismantle into 30 different companies. Commodore Vanderbilt started out young working as a captain of a ferry even though he was a wealthy businessman who owned many commercial steamboats services.
The steamboats operated between the cities of New Jersey and New York. The ferry job helped give Vanderbilt a better understanding of the growing steamship industry. In the late 1820’s he created his own line of business with the steamship industry by building them and operating his own ferry line, which were located all around the New York area. With a passion for the industry he became one of the top leaders, with this label though he had some wars with his other competitors. His competitors would sometimes pay him a large amount of cash to not compete with the, so it did not hurt his business. Since he was so wealthy and bringing in so much money, he bought his family a large brick home in Manhattan, in a Greenwich Village neighborhood. He has some issues moving in there the people around took a long time to get to know him due to thinking he was rough and
uncultured. Before the rise of the transcontinental railroads and during the California Gold Rush, Vanderbilt started up a steamship service in the early 1950’s.
This service was to transport prospectors from New York to San Francisco using the Nicaragua Route. This route he created because it was faster the established route across Panama and it was a lot faster than any other alternatives. With his new line of his instant wealth he was earning more than $1 million a year. Some of the similarities in these stories is that Rockefeller and Vanderbilt are they both were the head of their industries and people were making accusations about their ethics and what their morals and values were. Another one was that they were very wealthy men and had their family somehow apart of their accomplishments if they were involved in the industry or if they were providing for them. Both men were lucky enough to be born into good circumstances family wise. These men were both very successful businessmen and they made a name for themselves, that’s why we are learning about what they did as young entrepreneur
today.