Preview

John Davison Rockefeller

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1091 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
John Davison Rockefeller
Introduction:

John Davison Rockefeller was born July 8, 1839 in southern New York. Rockefeller’s first job was as a bookkeeper, later he formed a partnership with two others in the produce business proving him that he was an intense negotiator. It wasn’t until 1863 that Rockefeller made the best investment of his life. He founded the Cleveland Petroleum refinery (Standard Oil Trust). This investment did not only have an impact in his life, but also in the United States’ business, government and society. The Standard Oil Trust used its business power to change the United States’ economy, culture, technology, environment, and politic.

Content Analysis:

1. Chapter 3 mentioned the levels and spheres of corporate power; the Standard Oil had a huge impact in society at the surface level and the deep level. The power of spheres like the economic, technology, political, cultural, environmental, and power over individual made the Standard Oil to create changes in society. Standard Oil had a substantial impact on society using the economic power on both the surface and the deep level. On the surface level Standard Oil built new refinery and facilities that supplied them (locations), hired new workers and defined the structure of the industry. On the deeper level Standard Oil shaped the United States economy by making fuels that were to be used in the auto industry etc.

The Standard Oil used the cultural power on a deep level in society. As the Standard Oil kept growing up people started to change their attitude toward big businesses. The Standard Oil Trust controlled the business operations challenging the public. The corporation had a lot more power and people were afraid of that power. Until this day the same fair still exist in society. The power of individuals was affected on the surface level, being the largest company Standard Oil affected many people’s lives; competitors, suppliers, stakeholders and employees. On the deep level Standard Oil affected the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    John D. Rockefeller has earned a spot in the hall of shame. He became wealthy because of ruthless and dishonorable business tactics which then hurt the nation. Rockefeller became wealthy because, he lowered his prices way down and forced the Pennsylvania Railroad to lower their prices, and he also ran smaller companies out of business and then took them over for his own. After he took over most of the smaller businesses, he raised his own prices back up in order to bring in a bigger profit. Rockefeller’s robber baron side was reflected by this action because, he went behind people’s backs and turned the other way when it came to business partners.…

    • 379 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    ExxonMobil is identified as one of the world’s leading oil and gas businesses. It manages market commodities and means countrywide. ExxonMobil is entail in “marketing, gas, and oil exploration, transportation and production in roughly 200 nations” (ExxonMobil, 2015). This company furnishes assistance and products under label names such as “Mobil, Esso, and Exxon. ExxonMobil is known as one of the biggest oil industrial installation where a substance is refined in the nation” (ExxonMobil, 2015). This essay discusses ExxonMobil’s strategic initiative from the 2013 Summary Annual Report. The following details the company’s initiative, financial planning surrounding that initiative, the effect of cost and revenues on the supply chain, as well as the ethical concerns associated with this idea.…

    • 1174 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    DBQ Guilded age

    • 525 Words
    • 3 Pages

    However, politically their power was questionable and feared. Document D illustrates their control over more than their monopolies, suggesting their power even extends to the senate, whereas Document B compares the railroad president to an abusive king; collecting wages, bypassing the law, and even with the ability to control the economy, and the people affected, as he pleases. This helps to show that the politics are the people who had much gain from this. The railroad president were even more abusive because of the power they had to fire people without cause or without pay. The people had no control over the senate either because the senators were not directly elected within this period. Document H also gives an example of how a corporate giant such as Rockefeller’s Standard Oil can trump the lowly smaller businesses, dominating the market. Socially things were just as unjust; men and women were separated into different workplaces because of gender as seen on Document J, while subject to the military-style organization mentioned in Document C. The government never really interfered when they saw big monopolies rise, and when they…

    • 525 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    John D. Rockefeller was the head of the Standard Oil Company and one of the world's richest men. He used his fortune to make many generous causes. He was born in Richford, New York, on July 8, 1839. John Davison Rockefeller moved with his family to Cleveland, Ohio, at the age of 14.…

    • 894 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    John D. Rockefeller was one of the greatest entrepreneurs of the post-civil war time. Rockefeller’s achievements had the greatest impact for the United States beginning in 1870. John D. Rockefeller moved to Cleveland, Ohio as a young boy with his family. As he grew older, he decided to create a business in the oil industry. As stated by George Tindall, “Rockefeller recognized the potential profits in refining oil, and in 1870 he incorporated his various interests, naming the enterprise the Standard Oil Company of Ohio.” (America) Rockefeller became the largest refiner and wanted to push out the competitors of the oil industry to control the market. Rockefeller bought out the other Cleveland companies. If any company disputed, that company was…

    • 308 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Today, we know that John D Rockefeller the founder of Standard Oil company used his power to eliminate his competitors and tried to create a monopoly in oil industry. He made secret rebates with railroad companies, so railroads gave his company a lower rate than his competitors. As a result, he could drive out them from the market. In order to destroy the competitors, he raised prices in the areas with no competition, and lower prices in the areas with competition. His strategies ruined competitors, and made them to sell out or go bankrupt. He was considered a ruthless or tyrant who had a lot of enemies, but it was not considered illegal or unethical to monopolize an industry. I think after his first priority which was making money, he was…

    • 233 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    History Dbq 2012

    • 1940 Words
    • 8 Pages

    While the initial stages of big business trace back to pre-Civil War America, it was not until the post-Civil War time period that large corporations effected on American society. From Rockefeller to Vanderbilt to Carnegie and all in between, these men and their businesses had unprecedented influence on American life. John Rockefeller created the Standard Oil Trust, with the intention of his business, Standard Oil Company, becoming the oil monopoly; short after, The Homestead Strike against Carnegie Steel aroused massive public support for unions. Likewise, big businesses’ growth and influences brought about a decline in the cost of living and the birth of a new political party. As a whole, the rise of big business in post-Civil War America caused a downward economic spiral while simultaneously increasing American hostility toward government and corporations, ultimately leading to the birth of new political and philosophical movements.…

    • 1940 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    When Rockefeller was 16, he got a job as a bookkeeper's assistant, that is when he knew he was a businessman. When he was 19, he went into his first partnership and invested into the first and biggest oil business in Cleveland Ohio. In 1970, he discovered the first Standard Oil Company. Many thought he was doing unethical things, like his pricing and connections…

    • 410 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    John D. Rockefeller was the owner of Standard Oil Company. John was born into a very poor family and had to work very hard to start Standard Oil. He also had many problems later in his career. One of the problems he had during his career was the antitrust laws which made him disband his trust into many of the different companies that made up the trust. After Rockefeller stopped working at Standard Oil day to day he became a philanthropist and donated a lot of his money to help different causes.…

    • 607 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When Rockefeller was only twenty years old he started his own Oil firm (what kind of firm?) with a partner; this was also the same year the first oil well was drilled. Rockefeller then began investing in an oil refinery in Cleveland. During this time, Rockefeller met and fell in love with Laura Celestia “Cettie” Spelman. Spelman was the daughter of a wealthy politician, merchant, and abolitionist who was actively involved with the Underground Railroad. Rockefeller and Spelman went on to have four daughters and one son.…

    • 594 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Business is a fascinating topic to research and no one is more fascinating that John D. Rockefeller. This paper answers the age old question of any successful businessman: where did he get his start? I will answer that question with a paper about John D. Rockefeller’s early life. It will also explain how he became one of the first great business leaders for America and some of the major influences in his life and what he did after he…

    • 765 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    John D. Rockefeller created an oil empire, the Standard Oil Company, in this manner. Rockefeller monopolized the oil market through horizontal consolidation, buying out competitors, or driving competitors out of business by initiating rate wars. His cold-hearted mentality was highlighted when he claimed, “Individualism has gone, never to return.” In his testimony to the United States Industrial Commission, Rockefeller boasted about the “power to give the public improved products at less prices and still make a profit for stockholders”, but failed to recognize that consolidation left the poorer class suddenly unemployed. Many magnates also followed Andrew Carnegie’s entrepreneurial tactic of vertical consolidation, in which every stage of manufacturing a product was in the hands of a single corporation. According to James B. Weaver, such schemes allowed trusts to “control the articles which the plain people consume in their daily life.” The American people were forced to cope with the sugar trust, the leather trust, the harvester trust, the tobacco trust, and Rockefeller’s dominant Standard Oil trust. Along with the development of trusts, the invention of machinery allowed rich industrialists to hire less workers for lower wages. By cutting employees and saving money, the corrupt barons were…

    • 881 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    John D. Rockefeller did not start out as one might expect. When people envision Rockefeller they see a rich tycoon whose wealth was matched by few and whose influence had no limits. Many would not expect an early upbringing like his to result in such a manner as it did. On July 8th 1839, in Richford, New York, Elizabeth Davison Rockefeller gave birth to her second child, John D. Rockefeller. The family was middle class and included six brothers and sisters and two parents. William Avery Rockefeller, John’s father, was a quack of a doctor who claimed he could cure cancer. He would charge $25 per patient and went all over conducting his practice. Though he was often gone for extended periods of time, he brought home decent amounts of cash. William Rockefeller was, when he wasn’t away, a caring fun father. His wife, Elizabeth Rockefeller, was quite different than he was. She was more serious about matters especially when she was raising the kids. She was an extremely faithful Baptist woman who instilled faith, frugalness, charity, and discipline in her kids, especially John. When Rockefeller was young he went to work and by twelve years of age he had saved over $50…

    • 3007 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Now people and children who don’t have enough money to have/afford a dentist will be able to come in and get checked for free, thanks to Eastman’s donation. Then more people will be able to come in and have a clean healthy mouth. Last but not least, Rockefeller is a Captain of Industry, because,“He set up, at the urging of his son, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research(now Rockefeller University) and his gifts to it totaled $50,000,000 by the 1930s.”(Website) Thanks to Rockefeller’s donation, medical researchers will hopefully be able to help cure diseases and sicknesses. Then, more people can come into the city and hopefully be cured by a certain sickness that has overcame them. As a result of Rockefeller’s donation, more lives were saved and families wouldn’t have to be swallowed up with sadness all the time because a loved one has passed. Overall, all of these men have contributed dearly to organizations to help many people, and to these people who have been helped, can look up to these loyal men and find caring hearts, that they needed in their…

    • 447 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Increasing industry also led to political changes, such as those shown in document E which depicts John D. Rockefeller, an oil tycoon, holding the government in the palm of his hand. As more men grew rich and powerful from industry, they began to exercise their control over the government. They took advantage of the lower classes to increase their wealth and power, as seen in document H where Boss Tweed and other Tammany Hall collaborators “feast” on the corpse of New York.…

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays