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Entrepreneurship a bold and risky undertaking is a multifaceted entity. Throughout our years of schooling we are taught of the American Dream and entertained with stories of those who perfected it. The life of John D. Rockefeller, founder of the Standard Oil Company, is a paragon of entrepreneurship. Over a forty-year period, Rockefeller built Standard Oil into the largest company in the world, and for a time reigned as the richest man in the world. John D.
Rockefeller was born on his family's farm at Richard, New York, on July 8, 1939. John was the second of six children of William and Eliza Rockefeller, and they lived in modest conditions. When he was a boy, the family moved to several different locations, before permanently settling in Ohio in 1853. His father was a traveling salesman, who sold products that can most aptly be described as dubious and questionable, such as cancer cures. Moreover, he was a philanderer and a bigamist, and he was often gone for extended periods of time.
Because of this, Johns mother Eliza persistently struggled to maintain a semblance of stability at home. While pursuing his public education, John and his brother William lived in a house near their school. He joined the Erie Street Baptist Church, becoming a deacon at the age of nineteen and a trustee and the age of twenty-one. Rockefeller had essentially no education. At fifteen, he entered Central High School in Cleveland, but dropped out less than a year later. In 1855, he took a business course at Folsom Mercantile College, completing the six-month course in fewer than three.
After completing the business course, he spent six weeks searching for a job. He was eventually employed as an assistant bookkeeper by Hewitt & Tuttle, a small firm of commission merchants and produce shippers. A few months after starting work at Hewitt & Tuttle, he was promoted to the cashier and bookkeeper. In 1859, he had saved enough money to form a partnership in the commission business with another young man, Maurice B.
Clark. In that same year, oil was discovered at near Titusville in western Pennsylvania, giving rise to the petroleum industry. The city of Cleveland became a major refining center shortly after, and in 1863 Rockefeller and Clark entered the oil business as refiners. After gaining a new partner named Samuel Andrews, who had experience in the refining business, they built and operated a refining company called Andrews, Clark & Co. In 1865, the partners fervently disagreed about the management of their business and decided to sell to whoever bid the highest.
Rockefeller bought it for $ 72, 500, sold out his other interests, and together with Samuel Andrews, formed Rockefeller & Andrews. As the oil industry expanded, Rockefeller organized and started the Standard Oil Company, along with his brother, William, Samuel Andrews, Henry M. Flagler, and Stephen V. Harkness. By 1972, Standard Oil had purchased and controlled nearly all the refining firms in Cleveland, as well as two refineries in the New York City vicinity. Before long, the company was producing twenty-nine thousand barrels a day.
Furthermore, the company controlled every aspect of oil refining; Standard Oil had its own shop to manufacture wooden barrels, numerous massive storage tanks, warehouses for refined oil, and plants for the manufacturing of paint and glue. Standard Oil prospered immensely, and in 1882 all of its properties were merged into the Standard Oil Trust. With originally forty-two owners in the trust, it had an initial capital of nearly $ 70 million. After ten years, the trust was dissolved by the Ohio Supreme Court. The companies that made up the trust joined in the formation of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, due to a New Jersey law permitting a parent company to own the stock of the other companies. It has been estimated that Standard Oil owned three-fourths of the United States petroleum business in the 1890 s.
In 1896, Rockefeller retired from active leadership of the company, and in 1911, the United States Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of the parent company of New Jersey. The noblest of all Rockefellers gestures is undoubtedly his philanthropic dedication to society. From his very first paycheck, Rockefeller contributed ten percent of his earnings to his church. As his wealth grew, so did his giving, primarily to educational and public health causes, but also for basic science and the arts. In the late 1880 s, Rockefeller participated in the founding of the University of Chicago. He ultimately created a separate corporation, entitled to a great deal of wealth, to properly donate his funds to charity.
Lastly, his contributions to society helped form such beneficial organizations as The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, The General Education Board, The Rockefeller Sanitary Commission, and the Rockefeller Foundation. After the 1911 breakup, there have been numerous successors to Standard Oil of New Jersey; Standard Oil of Ohio and Indiana became a part of BP, Standard Oil of New York and New Jersey became parts of ExxonMobil, and various others were eventually bought by Sunoco, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips. Currently, the American petroleum industry is controlled by several major companies: BP, Chevron Texaco, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell Chemical. These companies, as well as various others, are all included in the NYSE Energy Index. The value of the index is assessed at 10, 922. 48 Throughout history, there have been numerous entrepreneurs who transformed their small business into billion-dollar corporations. In the late 19 th century, American industry was booming, providing several opportunities for entrepreneurs to expand their businesses.
Of these, John D. Rockefeller can most appropriately be labeled as the most successful entrepreneur of his era; Rockefeller transformed his small refining business in Ohio to the largest company in the world and, for a short juncture, reigned as the richest man in the world.
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Research essay sample on John D Rockefeller And Oil
