There ’s plentiful , there ’s flush , and then there ’s John D. Rockefeller . consider bymanyto be the most financially - well-to-do someone in New history with an estimated $ 900,000,000 depository financial institution Libra the Scales ( unadjustedfor inflation ) in the early 1910s , Rockefeller ( 1839 - 1937 ) made hismassive fortuneby eclipse the oil industry . While Rockefeller was prostrate to controversy — he was accused of being a monopoly in the fuel business — he was also a generous altruist , donating over a half - billion dollars in his lifetime ( and that ’s alsounadjustedfor pretentiousness ) . Take a look at some things you might not have known about the fabled tycoon .
1. HIS DAD PRETENDED TO BE A DOCTOR.
While his son would go on to want for nothing in life , William Avery Rockefeller was not a man of resources . The one thing he could depend on was a somewhat diabolical gift forconningothers . Before his son was bear , William drop time as an itinerant , going from place to place guess to be deaf and soliciting gratuitous meals . ( Eliza , the girl of one such target , became his wife and John ’s female parent . ) In other Ithiel Town , he would pass on out sheetsreferringto himself as “ doctor ” and affect to have found a “ curative ” for Crab . The elder Rockefeller alsoinsistedthat his mistress , Nancy , live on in the same house as his family , where she bear him two children . William Rockefeller would proceed peddling “ medication , ” sometimes under the anonym of William Levingston — and when he break in 1906 , that was the name on his tombstone .
2. HE CELEBRATED HIS OWN PERSONAL HOLIDAY.
More important to Rockefeller than his own birthday was what he ring “ Job Day . ” The future oil big businessman wasbornand elicit in upstate New York and bring on his first real chore at the age of 16 for a metric grain and coal provider / shipper after his menage relocate to Cleveland , Ohio . The date he bug out — September 26 , 1855 — was when Rockefeller believed he draw his prescribed starting in business . As an adult , he keep the 24-hour interval every yr .
3. HE DID EVERYTHING HE COULD TO DOMINATE THE OIL INDUSTRY.
Rockefeller ’s wealth was a consequence of his obsession with owning the oil industry . Hestruck dealswith railway to ship his goods cheaply , bought out smaller companies , and helped usher in the conception of a monopoly in forward-looking multiplication . Smaller line werefacedwith a choice : be consumed or assay to compete with his massive corporation . His buying spree was referred to as the “ Cleveland Massacre . ” By 1882 , his company , Standard Oil , owned or controlled 90 percent of all refineries in the United States . “ Competition is a wickedness , ” he was allegedlyquotedas saying .
4. HE HIRED A STAND-IN SOLDIER TO SERVE FOR HIM IN THE CIVIL WAR.
Due to be drafted to serve the Union in the Civil War in 1863 , the 23 - yr - old Rockefeller did what many adult male of means had done : Hepaidfor someone to serve in his place . This practice was allowed by the U.S. government , which cede draftee the power to offer up a substitute . No record survive of who the man who took Rockefeller ’s spot was . His blood brother , Frank , opt toserveat age 16 , telling a recruiting sergeant he was 18 . Despite beingwoundedin conflict , he survived .
5. HE HELPED REDUCE HOOKWORM IN THE UNITED STATES.
With his fortune , Rockefeller pursued a number of philanthropic travail in his lifetime . In 1910 , that funding led directly to thewidespread treatmentof a mostly - block malady : hookworm . The larvae recruit the soles of the feet and travel the bloodstream to the lungs beforesettlingin the gut , where sufferer can know stunted growth , anemia , and exhaustion . More than 40 percent of the universe in southerly country had hookworm contagion in the early 20th century . The Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the Eradication of Hookworm Disease used Rockefeller ’s $ 1 million contribution to map out high - risk areas and made a concentrated crusade to cure infected residents with Epsom salinity and thymol while educating the world on the need for improved sanitation systems .
While it was opine for decades that hookworm disease had been fundamentally extirpate in the United States , arecent studyfound that it still occurs in wiped out area of Alabama and possibly other area of the recondite south — but not with the severity of the other twentieth century .
6. HE LIKED HANDING OUT DIMES TO STRANGERS.
In the former 1900s , Rockefeller often traveled by ferry from his home in Tarrytown across the Hudson River and into Nyack , New York . When his ferry docked , he would typically be greet by children . Rockefeller came prepared , handing outdimes to his welcoming party . Rockefeller was also known to hand out coins to adult . Hereportedlydid this in part to instill habits of savings and thrift in people . Many of them hung on to their famous “ Rockefeller dimes ” as a keepsake .
7. SOMEONE PLANNED TO BLOW HIM UP.
At the turn of the century , bomb threats and detonations were often used to make a breaker point against capitalist economy by radicals search to upend the system ; business barons like J.P. Morgan and Rockefeller weretargeted . In the case of Rockefeller , it ’s been proposed that he was targeted for his family ’s purpose in theLudlow Massacrein Colorado , when several dramatic miners — and even kid — were killed during fighting with the Colorado National Guard and mine guards . as luck would have it for Rockefeller , his would - be bravo never made it to his Tarrytown home : On July 4 , 1914 , an explosion went off in a Harlem tenement , pour down several nihilist who had been hive away dynamite at the location . Their plan had been to leave alone it at Rockefeller ’s threshold .
8. MARK TWAIN PLAYED A ROLE IN STANDARD OIL’S DOWNFALL.
In 1900 , Ida Tarbell , the daughter of one of Rockefeller ’s business rivals , decided to even the score with Rockefeller bywritingan blanket 19 - part expose on his confutable business practice forMcClure’smagazine . A key source was Henry Rogers , who ferment for Rockefeller as an executive for Standard Oil for more or less 25 geezerhood . William Penn Adair Rogers heard of the series Tarbell was cultivate on and feel Standard Oil should be involved , asking his friend Mark Twain to inquire withMcClure ’s . Twain eventually call for , “ Would Miss Tarbell see Mr. Rogers ? ” and a meeting was set up . Rogers later on grew disordered when he encounter Tarbell ’s articles , but it was too recent . Her reporting pass to a 1911 Supreme Courtrulingthat broke up Standard Oil for goodness , mincing it into a serial of companies that laterbecame knownas Chevron , ExxonMobil , and others . Tarbell did n’t trim words about her blood feud or potential lack of objectiveness . In the copy , she cite to the slim Rockefeller as a “ exist mummy . ”
