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= John D. Rockefeller = John D. Rockefeller was born July 8, 1839. He died May 23, 1937. He was born in Richmond, New York. He is the second of six children and lived in Strongsville, Ohio. In 1850 he started a business with Maurice Clark. Their company was called Clark and Rockefeller Produce and Commission. They sold farm implements, fertilizers and household goods. He rose to wealth when he sold the business because it did not bring him the wealth that he desired. He invested in an oil business with Samuel Andrews called Standard Oil. Andrews developed a cheaper way of refining crude petroleum. A problem he encountered was the high cost of transporting oil to his refineries in Cleveland and the refined oil to New York. The prices were reduced and his sales increased dramatically when he negotiated an exclusive deal with a railroad company which he guaranteed sixty car-loads a day. By the end of one year Rockefeller had ran four of his competitors out of business. Eventually the company monopolized oil refining in Cleveland. Then he bought out Samuel Andrews for a million dollars. He then turned his attention to controlling the oil industry throughout the United States. In 1896 he was worth about 200 million dollars. President Theodore Roosevelt attempted to use the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to deal with Rockefeller’s monopoly of the oil industry. It was very ineffective, but in 1911 the Supreme Court dissolved the Standard Oil monopoly. The press campaigns against him turned him into one of America’s most hated men.

ROBBER BARON or CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY?
John D. Rockefeller was a robber baron because he would stop at nothing in order to achieve great wealth. He took over the oil industry and could set his own prices. Robber barons were accused of exploiting workers and forcing horrible working conditions and unfair labor practices. In some ways he was a captain of industry because after his monopoly ended he gave his money away. He donated about $600 million to different charities.

“John D. Rockefeller” //Wikipedia// http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller (Feb. 21, 2008) “John Rockefeller” //Virtualology.com// [|http://www.johndrockefeller.org] (Feb. 22, 2008) “John Rockefeller” http://spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USArockefeller (Feb. 21, 2008)