John D. Rockefeller's Role In The Oil Industry

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John D. Rockefeller was born on July 8th, 1839. He was the 2nd of 6 children born to William Avery Rockefeller and Eliza Davison in Richmond, New York. As a sixteen year old, Rockefeller got his first job as a bookkeeper for a small commission Firm called Hewitt & Tuttle. In 1859 he and Maurice B. Clark started a partnership together, which eventually led to them founding an oil refinery in 1863. Eventually, he bought out the Clark family’s portion of the business for 72,500 at an auction in the year 1865. Due to the Civil War just ending, oil was needed to flourish the economy, he was in a good place to become a powerful force in the oil industry. He continued to build relationships with other members of the oil industry. By June of 1870, …show more content…

His brother William had created an oil refinery in Cleveland and brought him into it soon after. This eventually became the largest oil refinery in the world, and was named Rockefeller, Flagler, and Andrews. This company was the predecessor to the Standard Oil Company. In 1870, the Standard Oil Company was formed by Rockefeller. At first this was the largest provider in Ohio, but soon this became the largest producer and provider of oil and kerosene in the United States. In Standard Oil's enormous empire, they owned 20,000 domestic wells, 4,000 miles of pipeline, 5,000 tank cars, and over 100,000 employees. In the 1890's Rockefeller decided to start in the transportation of ore and expanded into iron ore also. Which forced a hard collision with a steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. and their competition became a major talk within the nation. Early, Rockefeller decided to think about retirement with his amazing succession and probably the most influential company of all time. After a deal broker named Henry Clay Frick exchanged standard iron's interest for U.S. steel stock and gave Rockefeller and his son membership on the company's board of directors. In 1903, Rockefeller was at full retirement and after his investments in 1902, he owned a total of over $58