Introduction

Robber baron or captain of industry? Devout Baptist or ruthless capitalist? History doesn’t quite know what to do with John Davison Rockefeller, the self-made millionaire who began his business career as an office clerk and rose to become the wealthiest man in the world. The twenty-first century has seen the rise of men who, had they lived in Rockefeller’s time, would have been his peer in the innovation and acumen that they brought to the commercial world, igniting the business practices that led to profit and exploding them into the amounts of money and level of control that altered the financial sector.

In many ways, Rockefeller lived what we might regard as a model life. He did not drink alcohol. He attended church regularly. He was married to his wife for over fifty years. His children were not the spoiled, pampered scions of the rich but were expected to work, to live productive lives, and to obey the teachings of the Baptist faith which their parents instilled in them. Rockefeller’s philanthropy, which began when he was a boy putting pennies in the church offering plate, continued all his life and totaled more than $500 million given to education, religious causes, health, the arts, and World War I relief.

How then, to balance the seesaw of a life of such moral rectitude and such corporate aggression? Would our standards be different instead of discussing the life of John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil, we were examining Bill Gates of Microsoft, Steve Jobs of Apple, or Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook? The names of the tech giants who dominate the headlines and the stock exchange numbers parlayed their passion into profit, but along the way, they’ve had their share of lawsuits and controversy. Does that make them worthy apprentices to the man who had late nineteenth-century reformers seething over his methods? What about his charity? Gates, like Rockefeller, has dedicated his retirement to spending his billions on worthy causes.

What, perhaps, separates John D. Rockefeller from modern-day business entrepreneurs is the Sherman Antitrust Act, which did not exist when the Standard Oil Company began its climb to wealth and power. Public opposition to monopolies and the practices that they used to maintain their grip over the competition was fierce, but the government’s response moved at a slower pace. The Sherman Antitrust Act, the first legislative measure enacted by Congress to forbid trusts from gaining control of an industry, opened the door to legal action. The press, by its zeal in exposing the corrupt and criminal practices of monopolies, eagerly engaged its corporate enemies in battle in popular media. The Act, which passed unanimously in the House of Representatives and by a vote of 51-1 in the Senate, shows a rare alignment between the public, its legislative bodies, and the press in a crusade to bring down some of the most powerful business entities the country has ever known.

Perhaps it’s impossible to align the conflicting aspects of the lives of Rockefeller and those who followed him because their imprint so singularly changed the business world that we lack the proper metrics.

We may never be able to unravel the intricate mystery of the man whose name has become synonymous with wealth and power, but as we learn more about his life, we may glean a deeper understanding of today’s captains of industry and how they, their innovation and audacity, re-shape the century in which we live.