Download or read book John D Rockefeller Jr A Portrait written by Raymond B. Fosdick and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2019-07-31 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Mr. Fosdick has written a biography in its formal meaning — fully documented, chronologically precise — and not simply a personal tribute to a friend of more than forty years’ standing. The book, in consequence, is both biography and history, satisfying all the rigorous canons of personal and social analysis. It is to be read as part of the history of our time and as the record of a man of as much consequence to us as have been those other leaders and creators among his contemporaries who have affected public conduct. What we have here, then, is the narrative of a rich man who overcame the almost impossible handicaps of great wealth, limited religious upbringing, and a narrow and protective family circle. He might have become defensive and suspicious, or a recluse cultivating private and expensive hobbies, or a popular leader and therefore a demagogue (such patterns of the behavior of men of inherited fortunes are familiar throughout history), but instead he was able to grow and to assume great, national obligations. What might have been a puzzle slowly disappears under Mr. Fosdick’s skillful scholarship and his deep regard for his friend. The young Rockefeller (he is called throughout the book ‘JDR Jr.’), as early as 1910, when he was 36, severed his direct connections with business: did he do so because of a real or unconscious rejection of his father? Quite the contrary; father and son early forged strong bonds of mutual affection and respect, but while there never was hostility on the part of the son, neither was there subservience. JDR Jr. continued to support the philanthropies founded by the older man, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, the General Education Board, and the Rockefeller Foundation, and to expand them; did he do this because he, like other men in public life — like Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Louis D. Brandeis — was inevitably swept up in the ‘reform movement’ of the day? That was only a part, and possibly a minor one, of his development. For as his tastes became surer and his vocation clearer, he ranged wider and wider until his interests were as large as those of his country and his world. As one goes over the catalogue of his benefactions and interests — none ever representing a perfunctory concern, most requiring long years of careful planning with a devotion to exact detail that only the truly outstanding seem to possess — one grasps the sweep and boldness of JDR Jr.’s mind. Williamsburg; the Cloisters; Rockefeller Center; the Museum of Modern Art; the restoration of the Athenian Agora; Rheims, Versailles, Fontainebleau; Negro education; the four International Houses; Jackson Hole and the Jersey Palisades; the Library of the League of Nations at Geneva, and the site of the U.N. at New York; the interdenominational movement; the long battle to achieve industrial understanding in two decades marked by bitter strife between management and labor: this is only a partial list. Mr. Fosdick seeks the key to the Rockefellers in some observations made by Frederick T. Gates, that restless and fascinating man who had such a great influence on the lives of both father and son. In 1905, Gates wrote to the father: ‘Two courses are open to you. One is that you and your children while living should make final disposition of this great fortune in the form of permanent corporate philanthropies for the good of mankind... or at the close of a few lives now in being it must simply pass into the unknown, like some other great fortunes, with unmeasured and perhaps sinister possibilities.’ In 1929, Gates was satisfied, for he put down in a private document these remarks concerning JDR Jr.: ‘I have known no man who entered life more absolutely dominated by his sense of duty, more diligent in the quest of the right path, more eager to follow it at any sacrifice.’” — Louis M. Hacker, The New York Times “The central theme of Raymond B. Fosdick’s book is its subject’s career as a philanthropist... This is not an impartial book and was not so intended. Mr. Fosdick is an admiring friend and associate of the man of whom he writes. But if the book is understandably friendly to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., it is also an honest book.” — John D. Hicks, The Saturday Review

Download or read book John D Rockefeller Jr written by Raymond Blaine Fosdick and published by . This book was released on 1956 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book John D Rockefeller Jr written by Raymond Blaine Fosdick and published by . This book was released on 1956 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book John D RockeFeller written by John K. Winkler and published by Cosimo, Inc.. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What was the world's first billionaire really like? This highly entertaining work, by an acclaimed business biographer, seeks to explode the "shadowy myth" of John D. Rockefeller and reveal the "rare and astonishing personality" behind it. From his humble roots in Ohio, where he learned thrift and industry as the bookkeeper of a dockside warehouse, to the death threats this "modern Machiavelli" received during the early years of Standard Oil, to his ascendancy to the rank of "the most detested man in the country"-when churches refused his donations as tainted money-and his subsequent formation of the philanthropic Rockefeller Foundation, this is a knowingly ironic and subtly witty work of biography. JOHN K. WINKLER is also the author of W.R. Hearst: An American Phenomenon (1928) and Morgan the Magnificent, or The Life of J. Pierpont Morgan (1930).

Download or read book John D written by John K. Winkler and published by Cosimo, Inc.. This book was released on 2005-12-01 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "No Help Wanted" signs decorated the doors of Cleveland storekeepers and merchants in early September, 1855, when sixteen-year-old John Rockefeller set out to seek employment for his budding talents. It was a hard year in the West. For days and weeks the youth tramped the streets, grave, self-centered, tenacious in his quest. -from "A Pious Youth Gets a Flying Start" What was the world's first billionaire really like? This highly entertaining work, by an acclaimed business biographer, seeks to explode the "shadowy myth" of John D. Rockefeller and reveal the "rare and astonishing personality" behind it. From his humble roots in Ohio, where he learned thrift and industry as the bookkeeper of a dockside warehouse, to the death threats this "modern Machiavelli" received during the early years of Standard Oil, to his ascendancy to the rank of "the most detested man in the country"-when churches refused his donations as tainted money-and his subsequent formation of the philanthropic Rockefeller Foundation, this is a knowingly ironic and subtly witty work of biography. JOHN K. WINKLER is also the author of W.R. Hearst: An American Phenomenon (1928) and Morgan the Magnificent, or The Life of J. Pierpont Morgan (1930).

Download or read book John D Rockefeller a Portrait written by Raymond Blaine Fosdick and published by . This book was released on 1956 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book John D Rockefeller Illustrated With Portraits written by Barnie F. WINKELMAN and published by . This book was released on 1937 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book John D Rockefeller written by Grant Segall and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2001-02-08 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oxford Portraits are informative and insightful biographies of people whose lives shaped their times and continue to influence ours. Based on the most recent scholarship, they draw heavily on primary sources, including writings by and about their subjects. Each book is illustrated with a wealth of photographs, documents, memorabilia, framing the personality and achievements of its subject against the backdrop of history.

Download or read book Titan written by Ron Chernow and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 834 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist From the acclaimed, award-winning author of Alexander Hamilton: here is the essential, endlessly engrossing biography of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.—the Jekyll-and-Hyde of American capitalism. In the course of his nearly 98 years, Rockefeller was known as both a rapacious robber baron, whose Standard Oil Company rode roughshod over an industry, and a philanthropist who donated money lavishly to universities and medical centers. He was the terror of his competitors, the bogeyman of reformers, the delight of caricaturists—and an utter enigma. Drawing on unprecedented access to Rockefeller’s private papers, Chernow reconstructs his subjects’ troubled origins (his father was a swindler and a bigamist) and his single-minded pursuit of wealth. But he also uncovers the profound religiosity that drove him “to give all I could”; his devotion to his father; and the wry sense of humor that made him the country’s most colorful codger. Titan is a magnificent biography—balanced, revelatory, elegantly written.

Download or read book Random Reminiscences of Men and Events written by John Davison Rockefeller and published by . This book was released on 1913 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Abby Aldrich Rockefeller The Woman in the Family written by Bernice Kert and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2019-08-08 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1894, Abby Aldrich, the outgoing, impulsive daughter of Rhode Island’s Senator Nelson Aldrich, met Brown University student John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the shy and reserved heir to the Standard Oil fortune. This unlikely pair fell in love, but only seven years later did John feel confident enough to propose. Once married, Abby used her empathy, willingness to experiment, and defiant optimism to broaden John’s way of thinking and to expand his vision of what the Rockefeller fortune could do, shaping the family into a progressive force in philanthropy, the arts, and politics. Abby cherished and protected her six children — Babs, John III, Nelson, Laurance, Winthrop, and David — and inspired in them a desire to serve society. She helped open the nation’s eyes to modern art and in 1928, initiated the foundation of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. From behind the scenes Abby helped direct the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg and the building of Rockefeller Center. “Abby Aldrich Rockefeller was a legendary figure, a woman of great wealth and power who used them for great good — in often cunning ways. Astonishingly, no one has written her story before. Now Bernice Kert has done so in a sweeping, meticulous, original biography that illuminates a rare life, an historic family, and modern America.” — Catharine R. Stimpson, University Professor, Rutgers University “Bernice Kert can raise biography to a level of insight and surprise that matches the best fiction. Witness this study of a woman we think we know all about.” — Elizabeth Janeway, author of Man’s World, Woman’s Place “Bernice Kert’s thoroughly researched biography of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller is a welcome and wonderful read. Everyone interested in art and social history will want to read about this most progressive and interesting Rockefeller.” — Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume I, 1884-1933 “[Reading] this biography, the life of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, is like reading an exciting mystery story. One can hardly wait to turn the page to find out what this extraordinary and fascinating woman did, not only for herself but for everything and everyone she touched, from her husband, to nature, to the opening of a new view into the art world. The vitality of Abby Rockefeller, as depicted here by Bernice Kert, is a lesson to all women.” — Brooke Astor “What might have been a kind of family mausoleum turns out to be a fascinating read, brimming with fresh material from unpublished archives and interviews with eyewitnesses. Bernice Kert’s thorough and engaging portrait brings to life an enormously influential American woman who had an historic impact on both her extraordinary family and the arts — as a pioneering collector and patron, and as the innovating founder of two major museums.” — J. Carter Brown, Director Emeritus, National Gallery of Art “Kert, despite all her exhaustive research, happily lets her subject retain all of her formidable vitality and independence... Kert deals not only with the couple’s marriage — which was, in spite of some strains, a lifelong love affair — and the six Rockefeller children, but also with Abby’s generous contributions to art, education, and politics, as well with as her role in creating Rockefeller Center and Colonial Williamsburg. A splendidly intelligent, very readable portrait of a woman who was as wise in the rearing of her family as in the spending of her great wealth.” — Kirkus Reviews “In this elegantly written, carefully researched and psychologically astute biography, Abby Rockefeller emerges as a loveable and intelligent woman who wielded her great privilege to a variety of socially beneficial ends.” — Publishers Weekly “Bernice Kert [has] an eye for offbeat biography... Kert’s penetrating close-up captures not only [Abby’s] remarkable personality but the suffocating nuances of post-Victorian matrimony; women readers in particular will relish Abby’s refusal to be pigeonholed.” — Ted Berkman, Los Angeles Times “A picture of a complex and engaging woman, one who was at once very much a part of her time and extraordinarily ahead of it... Although the Modern museum was at the heart of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller’s work... her interests were far ranging. They included the advancement of civil rights, historic preservation and education. The portrait of her in this book is that of a model aristocrat, a wealthy, well-bred woman who understood power and the creative, contemporary uses of the concept of noblesse oblige. Kert shows Abby Rockefeller to have been, in her way, very much a feminist.” — Robert Duffy, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Download or read book A Rockefeller Family Portrait written by William Manchester and published by . This book was released on 1958 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The History of the Standard Oil Company written by Ida Minerva Tarbell and published by Library of Alexandria. This book was released on 2020-09-28 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the busiest corners of the globe at the opening of the year 1872 was a strip of Northwestern Pennsylvania, not over fifty miles long, known the world over as the Oil Regions. Twelve years before this strip of land had been but little better than a wilderness; its chief inhabitants the lumbermen, who every season cut great swaths of primeval pine and hemlock from its hills, and in the spring floated them down the Allegheny River to Pittsburg. The great tides of Western emigration had shunned the spot for years as too rugged and unfriendly for settlement, and yet in twelve years this region avoided by men had been transformed into a bustling trade centre, where towns elbowed each other for place, into which three great trunk railroads had built branches, and every foot of whose soil was fought for by capitalists. It was the discovery and development of a new raw product, petroleum, which had made this change from wilderness to market-place. This product in twelve years had not only peopled a waste place of the earth, it had revolutionised the world’s methods of illumination and added millions upon millions of dollars to the wealth of the United States. Petroleum as a curiosity, and indeed in a small way as an article of commerce, was no new thing when its discovery in quantities called the attention of the world to this corner of Northwestern Pennsylvania. The journals of many an early explorer of the valleys of the Allegheny and its tributaries tell of springs and streams the surfaces of which were found covered with a thick oily substance which burned fiercely when ignited and which the Indians believed to have curative properties. As the country was opened, more and more was heard of these oil springs. Certain streams came to be named from the quantities of the substance found on the surface of the water, as “Oil Creek” in Northwestern Pennsylvania, “Old Greasy” or Kanawha in West Virginia. The belief in the substance as a cure-all increased as time went on and in various parts of the country it was regularly skimmed from the surface of the water as cream from a pan, or soaked up by woollen blankets, bottled, and peddled as a medicine for man and beast. Up to the beginning of the 19th century no oil seems to have been obtained except from the surfaces of springs and streams. That it was to be found far below the surface of the earth was discovered independently at various points in Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania by persons drilling for salt-water to be used in manufacturing salt. Not infrequently the water they found was mixed with a dark-green, evil-smelling substance which was recognised as identical with the well-known “rock-oil.” It was necessary to rid the water of this before it could be used for salt, and in many places cisterns were devised in which the brine was allowed to stand until the oil had risen to the surface. It was then run into the streams or on the ground. This practice was soon discovered to be dangerous, so easily did the oil ignite. In several places, particularly in Kentucky, so much oil was obtained with the salt-water that the wells had to be abandoned. Certain of these deserted salt wells were opened years after, when it was found that the troublesome substance which had made them useless was far more valuable than the brine the original drillers sought.

Download or read book Memoirs written by David Rockefeller and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-04-27 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born into one of the wealthiest families in America—he was the youngest son of Standard Oil scion John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the celebrated patron of modern art Abby Aldrich Rockefeller—David Rockefeller has carried his birthright into a distinguished life of his own. His dealings with world leaders from Zhou Enlai and Mikhail Gorbachev to Anwar Sadat and Ariel Sharon, his service to every American president since Eisenhower, his remarkable world travels and personal dedication to his home city of New York—here, the first time a Rockefeller has told his own story, is an account of a truly rich life.

Download or read book John D Rockefeller The Original Titan written by J. R. MacGregor and published by Cac Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2019-05-25 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live in a world today that is based on the actions of John D. Rockefeller. Everything we do and how we live are the result of oil and its power. The story of Rockefeller as told in this book provides a deep view of the oil industry and is told from a very human and real perspective.

Download or read book John D Rockefeller Jr written by In60learning and published by . This book was released on 2019-09-08 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Smarter in sixty minutes.Get smarter in just 60 minutes with in60Learning. Concise and elegantly written non-fiction books and audiobooks help you learn the core subject matter in 20% of the time that it takes to read a typical book. Life is short, so explore a multitude of fascinating historical, biographical, scientific, political, and financial topics in only an hour each.John D. Rockefeller Jr, 1874 to 1960, was an American financier and a prominent part of the industrial, political, and banking family, the Rockefellers, known for owing one of the world's largest fortunes. John Jr was the only son of John D. Rockefeller, the Standard Oil co-founder, and more significantly, he was the father of the five Rockefeller brothers, who include Nelson Rockefeller, the 41st Vice President of The United States and David Rockefeller, chairman and chief executive of Chase Manhattan Corporation. John Jr attended Park Avenue Baptist Church and the Browning School, and graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts from Brown University. After graduation, John Jr joined his father's business and quickly became a director of Standard Oil. Soon after, he also became a director at J. P. Morgan's US Steel company. John Jr was involved heavily in financing and developing the Rockefeller Centre during the Great Depression. As a result of the completion of this vast office complex project, John Jr became one of the largest real estate holders in New York City. This was followed shortly by John Jr receiving from his father 10% of the shares in the Equitable Trust Company, making him the bank's largest shareholder. John Jr was also well known for his philanthropy and his desire to use his vast wealth for the betterment of other people's lives and gave more than half a billion dollars to various educational, religious, scientific, and healthcare causes, both in the United States and internationally. John Jr died of pneumonia in 1960, leaving behind six children and twenty grandchildren and a vast legacy of financial development and philanthropic support.

Download or read book John D Rockefeller written by Rosemary Laughlin and published by Morgan Reynolds Publishing. This book was released on 2001 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Follows the life of John D. Rockefeller from his founding of Standard Oil to his later charitable efforts.