World’s Greatest Philanthropist John Davison Rockefeller Sr:

 

World’s Greatest Philanthropist John Davison Rockefeller Sr:

The moment someone mentions ‘Rockefeller’, we remember only the American industrialist and philanthropist Rockefeller Sr of the 19^th century. John Davison Rockefeller as he was known reached great heights by hard work and sheer intelligence. Rockefeller was born on July 8, 1839 as the second of six children of William Avery and Eliza at Richford in New York, United States. His father was a “doctor”. He would travel for months from town to town and come back with money to run the family. His mother was devoted to religion and well-disciplined. She taught him to work,save and help the needy. When he was four years old, the family moved to Moravia, New York. At the age of 7, he started a small business,raising turkeys large farmyard birds and selling them. At that young age he used to give some money to charity. He attended Owego Academy in New York in 1852. He was very good in mental arithmetic and could solve difficult arithmetic problems and that was very useful to him in his business career. Between 1853 and 1855 he was attending High School at Cleveland . He excelled in mathematics. Rockefeller learnt from his father how to draw up notes and other business papers. On september 26,1855, he joined a commercial company called Henry B.Turtle and Isaac L.Hewitt as a book-keeping assistant. He was always referring to 26^th September as ‘Job Day’ all the time in his life. He impressed his employer’s with diligent work. Whatever was paid to him as remuneration, he always gave some of it to his church and local charities. He was self-confident, bold and full of imagination. Before his 20^th birthday on March 18,1859, he started his own business with Clark. Each put $2000 and formed Clark & Rockefeller commission merchants in grain, hay, meat and miscellaneous goods. In the first year itself they earned a profit of $4400. Next year they made $ 17,000. Rockefeller started oil business in 1863. He left the commission business in 1865 to work full time in oil. At the age of 24, he bought Oil Refining Business for $72,500 and secured complete control of the business. In 1867, Rockefeller , Andrews & Flagger’ was formed and the next year they were the largest oil refiners in the world. In 1870 he brought into being ‘Standard Oil Company’ with five others. As the largest stockholder , he directed the company until he gave up work in 1896, But he continued to have the title of president until 1911. In 1871 he made in detail a plan for combining all oil refineries into one great organisation. Within a year he had either bought or combined almost all refineries with his own. By the year 1880 Rockefeller was worth $18 million. He was also involved in many business ventures, holding stock in Cleveland and in 1905 constructing the ‘Rockefeller Building’. His son John D.Rockefeller Jr joined him in 1897 in full time management. His fortunes reached a maximum of $ 900000000 in 1912. He gave $60000 to a small school at Chicago in Illinois. In 1892 it became the University of Chicago. He gave even more donations to more schools and charities all over the world. Rockefeller , the great philanthropist, supported Industrial School, Children’s Aid society. Baptist Church,Nurses’ Association, Invalids’ Home , children’s Fresh Air Camp, Young Men’s Christian Association,etc., $865,000 worth of land to the city for use as parks for public recreation. He set up several organizations to handle his gifts and contributions. Among them were Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research, General Education Board, Rockefeller Foundation(1913) and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial(1918) in memory of his wife who died in 1915. His autobiography ‘Random Reminiscences’ was published in 1909. Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research was the first institution in the USA to devote solely to bio-medical research to understanding the basic causes of disease. Today the institute called ‘Rockefeller University’ is one of the foremost research center in the world contributing 23 Nobel Prize winners for Medicine and numerous other awards. Rockefeller Foundation is a knowledge – based global foundation that provides grants to wipe out poverty and hunger, reduce the burden of disease, improve employment opportunities, increase the availability and quality of housing and schools, and arouse creativity and cultural expression. ‘Rockefeller Center’ is a city within city covering 11 acres in midtown Manhattan. Rockefeller passed away on May 23, 1937. His generosity surely won for him the right to be called the ‘World’s Greatest Philanthropist’.