Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

“Two words leap from the story—widowed mother. It seems of some psychological significance that the first recorded instance of Rockefeller’s capacity to lie came in an effort to hush up his father’s existence—in fact, to bury him alive.”

In 1854, Rockefeller enlisted the help of his school principal, Dr. White, in securing a home for his “widowed mother” and two sisters. Bill, of course, was still alive, but by this point he was at best a transient figure in 14-year-old John’s life. Unbeknownst to the teenager or his neglected mother Eliza, Bill already had met Margaret Allen of Ontario, Canada, the woman he would shortly marry and thereby commence his half-century-long career as a bigamist. Psychologically, it appears the young Rockefeller was already committing his father to memory.

“This last sentence hinted gingerly at what must have been the main reason behind his failure to serve: his father’s desertion of the family and his own need to sustain it.”

The US Civil War began when Rockefeller was 21 years old, but he did not join the Union Army. Despite his, his family’s, and his future in-laws’ strong anti-slavery convictions, Rockefeller hired a substitute to serve in his place. The “last sentence” to which Chernow refers is Rockefeller’s own explanation for why he did not serve: “We were in a new business, and if I had not stayed it must have stopped—and with so many dependent on it” (69). The US government exempted from service any man who bore the sole burden of supporting a family, and with his father’s abandonment, young Rockefeller had no choice but to take care of his mother and siblings. It is also worth noting, however, that the Civil War helped make Rockefeller rich—a major factor in stoking the resentment of his youngest brother Frank, who fought for the Union.

“Without doubt, the Lake Shore deal marked a turning point for Rockefeller, the oil industry, and the entire American economy.”

In 1868, Rockefeller and his associate Henry M. Flagler negotiated a special deal with the Lake Shore Railroad. In exchange for guaranteed freight of “an astonishing sixty carloads of refined oil daily,” the railroad gave Rockefeller and Flagler a special rate of $1.65 per barrel, a 75-cent-per-barrel discount on the public rate of $2.40 per barrel and a “revolutionary deal” (113). This was the birth of the infamous railroad rebate, which Ida Tarbell later “condemned” as “Rockefeller’s original sin from which all others sprang” (114).

“At times, when he railed against cutthroat competition and the vagaries of the business cycle, Rockefeller sounded more like Karl Marx than our classical image of the capitalist.”

This is perhaps the most striking expression of one of the book’s major themes: Cooperation Over Competition. There is substantial irony in the fact that John D. Rockefeller and Karl Marx each despised the theory of economic competition espoused by the 18th-century political economist and philosopher Adam Smith, often regarded as the intellectual father of free-market capitalism. Marx, of course, envisioned the destruction of capitalism and the triumph of cooperative communism, whereas Rockefeller, no mere theorist, actually destroyed competition and replaced it with industrial consolidation and cooperation.

“It is important to point out that oil-refining was a capital-intensive industry without the seething discontents that afflicted the coal mines or steel mills.”

In the business world, fortune always seemed to smile on Rockefeller. Due to the nature of the oil industry, Rockefeller and Standard Oil experienced no serious labor disputes. This is remarkable, considering the rising power of organized labor in these years and its frequent clashes with management. Pittsburgh alone experienced major violence on several occasions, including the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and the Homestead Massacre of 1892. It is worth noting, however, that this prolonged immunity to one of the era’s most potent socio-economic distempers left Rockefeller and especially Junior unprepared for the labor crisis and violence at Colorado Fuel and Iron in 1913–1914.

“Rockefeller had positioned himself exactly where he wished to be—poised to profit from either surplus or scarcity and all but immune to the vagaries of the marketplace.”

Specifically, this sentence refers to Rockefeller’s ability and willingness to dictate terms to oil producers when a fresh oil strike at Bradford, Pennsylvania, in 1875 resulted in excess supply. Because he already owned or controlled the means of both transportation and storage, Rockefeller refused to allow temporary storage of crude oil and instead purchased at diminished lower prices the surplus oil he would send immediately to refineries. Then, when the glut of supply cleared and prices rose, Rockefeller profited. This made good business sense, but it also ruined many producers. In a larger sense, it also illustrates the power of the monopolist who consolidates an entire industry: If there is no competition, then the monopolist cannot lose.

“Rockefeller hoped the trust would serve as a model for a new populist capitalism, marked by employee share ownership.”

For nearly three decades, from its inception in 1882 to its dissolution by the US Supreme Court in 1911, the Standard Oil trust loomed as the outsized bogeyman of reformers’ nightmares. It is important to note, therefore, that Rockefeller always viewed the trust as both the manifestation and the benevolent agent of economic cooperation—an antidote to ruinous competition. Chernow describes the trust as “a union not of corporations but of stockholders” (226), which would ensure that individuals had a direct stake in the success of the whole. While Chernow regularly denounces many of Standard Oil’s business practices, and while he notes that Rockefeller’s motives were never as wholly altruistic as the titan claimed, the book nonetheless extols the rational virtues of some of the trust’s organizational innovations. This helps explain why Chernow is later so skeptical of the trustbusters’ motives and dismissive of the results they produced.

“He knew everything that was going on and now, for the first time, we can document it.”

Chernow’s unique ability to “document” Rockefeller’s misdeeds stems from unprecedented access to the titan’s papers, housed in the Rockefeller Archive Center—an advantage Chernow acknowledges in the book’s foreword. Ironically, the documentation comes less from Rockefeller than from his colleagues, whose incriminating correspondence Rockefeller preserved. Chernow notes, for instance, that “Rockefeller pleaded ignorance” of shady railroad deals, but “his papers document” that he was heavily involved (251). Likewise, “Rockefeller self-servingly disclaimed knowledge” of his marketing associates’ intimidation tactics,” and yet “his files show that he received a full accounting” of them (255). Chernow’s harshest judgments of Rockefeller appear in this chapter.

“Had Frasch not figured out how to use Lima crude, a critical shortage of American oil would have arisen between the depletion of western Pennsylvania crude and the Texas and Kansas booms of the early 1900s.”

In 1885, an oil-strike in northwest Ohio and eastern Indiana brought new possibilities, but the sulfur-suffused crude oil in that region gave off a terrible smell that diminished its commercial value. Rockefeller, therefore, hired a scientist named Herman Frasch to solve the problem. Frasch’s success in deodorizing the crude helped augment Standard Oil’s already considerable wealth, but Chernow notes that it also staved off a shortage and thus provided tangible benefits to all Americans. While Chernow is sensitive to Standard Oil’s abuses and critical of its unsavory business methods, he is also quick to point out the residual benefits that accrued to American consumers as a direct result of Rockefeller’s obsession with dominating the industry.

“In the long run, Rockefeller transposed to philanthropy the same principle of consolidation that had worked so well for him in business.”

In this chapter, Chernow describes Rockefeller’s establishment of the University of Chicago, which in many ways will serve as a model for his future philanthropy. Thanks to a spendthrift administration, the university ultimately cost Rockefeller more money than he expected, and he would take steps to avoid this problem in subsequent ventures. Still, Rockefeller always preferred giving away large sums to worthy institutions rather than allowing small-scale projects to slowly bleed his fortune while making comparatively little impact on the world.

“The advent of the automobile was a godsend for Standard Oil, for the more lightbulbs shone across America, the more kerosene was relegated to remote rural areas without access to electric power.”

Modern readers often associate oil with gasoline, so it is easy to forget that Standard Oil made its fortune selling kerosene, a popular illuminant in the days before Thomas Edison’s breakthrough electric bulb. Chernow generally emphasizes Rockefeller’s business instincts and sound judgment as keys to his success, but here is another instance when good fortune also intervened.

“By showing generosity, he enlisted his son’s loyalty forever.”

Fresh out of college and thus new to Standard Oil, Junior made a million-dollar investment mistake. Senior responded without chastising the young man: “All right. I’ll take care of it, John” (356). Throughout the second half of the book, Chernow highlights Junior’s internal struggles with the Standard Oil legacy, but these struggles seem never to have diminished Junior’s reverence for his father, and this incident is likely one reason why.

“In Gates, Rockefeller had found not merely an able investor but a prodigy. In 1917, asked by B.C. Forbes to name the greatest businessman he had ever encountered, Rockefeller startled readers by skipping Flagler and Archbold—not to mention Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie—and naming Frederick T. Gates.”

Frederick T. Gates oversaw Rockefeller’s massive philanthropic efforts and even saved the titan from several surprisingly ill-advised investments, so it is not surprising that Rockefeller would hold him in high regard. As for the other two Standard Oil men mentioned in this quotation, Rockefeller both admired and profited from the business-related talents of Flagler and Archbold, but he thought that in different ways they lacked the requisite discipline. More importantly, Rockefeller’s professed admiration for Gates’s superior abilities shows that the titan made his philanthropic ventures a chief priority. Otherwise, they would have been trusted to a lesser man than Gates.

“A defender to the end, Twain later blamed the muckrakers Teddy Roosevelt for Standard Oil’s infamy.”

Of all the luminaries who entered the Rockefeller orbit, the legendary author Mark Twain is perhaps the most surprising. A satirist, Twain was no friend to the era’s economic and political elites. Co-author of the book that coined the phrase “Gilded Age,” Twain rejected aggressive expansionism and even served as vice-president of the American Anti-Imperialist League. Still, Twain was also a close friend of Henry H. Rogers and a “frequent visitor to 26 Broadway” (381), where he occasionally had lunch with Junior.

“However pathbreaking in its time and richly deserving of its accolades, the Tarbell series does not, finally, stand up as an enduring piece of history. The more closely one examines it, the more it seems a superior screed masquerading as sober history.”

This passage represents Chernow’s assessment of Ida Tarbell’s series as a “piece of history.” In short, Tarbell did not write a balanced account of Rockefeller or of Standard Oil, nor did she attempt to do so. As a contemporary of Rockefeller who never interviewed him, who only once saw him in person from a distance, and who nursed a lifelong resentment against the monopolist she blamed for ruining her father’s business, Tarbell could not have written anything authoritative about Rockefeller even if she had sincerely wished. Instead, Tarbell’s work amounts to reasoned and intelligent advocacy. It is a primary source that reveals much about Tarbell and the era in which she lived. To Chernow, this in no way diminishes Tarbell’s importance to Rockefeller’s story.

“While Tarbell’s articles were running, Rockefeller, his wife, his son, and two of his three daughters were afflicted by serious medical problems or nervous strain.”

Ida Tarbell’s muckraking exposé of Standard Oil, published as a book in 1904, ranks as one of the most powerful and influential critiques in the history of American investigative journalism. Rockefeller’s legendary secrecy, coupled with his pious belief in his own good intentions, prevented him from making any meaningful comments on the Tarbell series as it unfolded in the press. This silence has given rise to the false impression that Tarbell’s work had no effect on the cold and calculating industrial titan. In fact, not only Rockefeller but nearly every member of his family reeled from Tarbell’s relentless attacks. Chernow explicitly connects Tarbell’s series to specific health-related episodes, including Junior’s 1904 nervous breakdown.

“What makes him so problematic—and why he continues to inspire such ambivalent reactions—is that his good side was every bit as good as his bad side was bad.”

Throughout the book, Chernow periodically reminds readers of Rockefeller’s complex and often contradictory character. This sentence appears in the first paragraph of a chapter on Rockefeller’s philanthropy, which immediately follows a chapter on Ida Tarbell’s scathing indictment of Standard Oil.

“With such men at the helm, the GEB, for all its good works, would fall considerably short of heaven. Neither Senior nor Junior held such baldly racist sentiments, but they agreed that the board had to accommodate retrograde southern views in order to function.”

Here Chernow refers to William H. Baldwin, first chairman of the Rockefeller-financed General Education Board, originally designed to improve education in the South. Chernow quotes Baldwin as arguing for an industrial-focused education that will allow “the Southern white farmer to perform the more expert labor” and “leave the fields, the mines, and the simpler trades for the Negro” (485). Senior and Junior acquiesced in the widely-held prejudiced assumptions on which this “baldly racist” idea rested. Junior originally wanted to call this new organization the “Negro Education Board,” but he dropped this antiracist name in deference to white-supremacist attitudes in both South and North. Given the book’s biographical and industrial focus, Chernow does not dwell at great length on the problem of race; however, here we see that the Rockefellers at least in part shared the biases of the race-obsessed era in which they lived.

“Once, during a golf game, Rockefeller announced, ‘My greatest fortune in life has been my son.’”

Chernow describes Junior as the most dutiful of Rockefeller’s children and perhaps the most complete amalgam of Senior and Cettie. In this way, Junior mirrors Senior, whom Chernow also describes as a mixture of parental personalities, though Bill and Eliza could not have been more different, which explains why Rockefeller was a walking contradiction. It is doubtful that Junior ever knew that his father felt this way, for Senior could be far more parsimonious with compliments than with money. For his part, Rockefeller no doubt felt pleased that he at least had been an infinitely better father to Junior than Bill ever was to him.

“Thus ended the longest running morality play in American business history.”

Here Chernow refers to the 1911 US Supreme Court decision that ordered the dissolution of the Standard Oil trust. Chernow’s assessment of Rockefeller’s business practices is as balanced as his broader judgments about Rockefeller’s legacy. On one hand, Chernow regularly excoriates Rockefeller and Standard Oil for their heavy-handed exploitation of weaker rivals, their industrial espionage, and their shameless bribery of public officials—the last of which Chernow describes as far more frequent and reprehensible than Rockefeller’s contemporary critics ever knew. On the other hand, Chernow also recognizes that the ranks of the muckraking reformers and trustbusters—Henry Demarest Lloyd, Theodore Roosevelt, Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, etc.—were filled with self-righteous moralizers and ambitious opportunists who often targeted Standard Oil for all the wrong reasons and, in the end, with limited or even ironic results, for Rockefeller’s personal fortune skyrocketed after the 1911 decision.

“Edith never expressed any remorse for having deserted her father during the last twenty years of her life. She had long been liberated from such outmoded concepts.”

Rockefeller’s daughter Edith had so many anxiety-related ailments that she spent years living in Europe under the care of Dr. Carl Jung, the famous psychiatrist. Despite her reverence for Jung and her immersion in psychoanalysis, Edith’s condition did not seem to improve over time, which helps explain the mild sarcasm in Chernow’s second sentence. Abandonment is a recurring theme in Rockefeller’s long life, dating back to his father’s departure. For her part, Edith unquestionably rebelled against her strict Baptist upbringing and later probably felt some bitterness over Rockefeller’s sexist decision to settle most of his fortune on Junior.

“By 1922, Rockefeller had lost his parents, his four brothers and sisters, his wife, his eldest daughter, two grandchildren, and the vast majority of his old business partners.”

An oft-overlooked aspect of Rockefeller’s life is its sheer longevity. Even in 1922, the year he turned 83, Rockefeller had outlived nearly everyone who ever meant anything to him, and he still had another 15 years of life ahead of him. Chernow notes that the elderly Rockefeller often appeared relaxed and playful, but also at times despondent and very lonely. Rockefeller never spoke of death; it was one of his greatest fears. This is another paradox in Rockefeller’s life: The richer he became, and the longer he lived, the lonelier he often seemed, and the more death surrounded him.

“Rockefeller was always either lionized or vandalized according to the temper of the times.”

Here Chernow speaks to the treatment Rockefeller’s public image received through the years. In the 1890s and 1900s, at the dawn of the Progressive Era, when the United States endured two major economic downturns, and when the reformist spirit, fueled in part by muckraking journalists such as Ida Tarbell, reached its zenith, Rockefeller and Standard Oil were almost-universally reviled. In the Roaring Twenties, however, when the economic atmosphere appeared serene, and when his name had become associated with large-scale philanthropy, Rockefeller’s popularity soared. This insight applies not only to Rockefeller but to nearly all historical figures, whose reputations ebb and flow according to events and attitudes that change over time.