Rockefeller family today

American financier and philanthropist (–)

John Davison Rockefeller Jr. (January 29, – May 11, ) was an American financier and philanthropist. Rockefeller was the fifth child and only son of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller. He was involved in the development of the vast office complex in Midtown Manhattan known as Rockefeller Center, making him one of the largest real estate holders in the city.

Towards the end of his life, he was famous for his philanthropy, donating over $ million to a wide variety of different causes, including educational establishments. Among his projects was the reconstruction of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. He was widely blamed for having orchestrated the Ludlow Massacre and other offenses during the Colorado Coalfield War.^[1][2] Rockefeller was the father of six children: Abby, John III, Nelson, Laurance, Winthrop, and David.

Early life

John Davison Rockefeller Jr. was born on January 29, , in Cleveland, Ohio.^[3] He was the fifth and youngest child of Standard Oil co-founder John Davison Rockefeller Sr. and schoolteacher Laura Celestia "Cettie" Spelman. His four older sisters were Elizabeth (Bessie), Alice (who died an infant), Alta, and Edith.

Living in his father's mansion at 4 West 54th Street, he attended Park Avenue Baptist Church at 64th Street (now Central Presbyterian Church) and the Browning School, a tutorial establishment set up for him and other children of associates of the family; it was located in a brownstone owned by the Rockefellers, on West 55th Street.

His father John Sr. and uncle William Rockefeller Jr. co-founded Standard Oil together.

Initially, he had intended to go to Yale University but was encouraged by William Rainey Harper, president of the University of Chicago, among others, to enter the Baptist-oriented Brown University instead. Nicknamed "Johnny Rock" by his roommates, he joined both the Glee and the Mandolin clubs, taught a Bible class, and was elected junior class president.

Scrupulously careful with money, he stood out as different from other rich men's sons.^[4]

In , he graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, after taking nearly a dozen courses in the social sciences, including a study of Karl Marx's Das Kapital. He joined the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Biography john d rockefeller jr Senate Committee hearing. A board member at the company, John D. Maintain an interest in life and all living things. He died on May 11, , in Tucson, Arizona.

Business career

After graduation from Brown, Rockefeller joined his father's business in October , setting up operations in the newly formed family office at 26 Broadway where he became a director of Standard Oil. He later also became a director at J. P. Morgan's U.S.

Steel company, which had been formed in Junior resigned from both companies in in an attempt to "purify" his ongoing philanthropy from commercial and financial interests after the Hearst media empire unearthed a bribery scandal involving John Dustin Archbold (the successor to Senior as head of Standard Oil) and two prominent members of Congress.^[5]

In September , the United Mine Workers of America declared a strike against the Colorado Fuel and Iron (CF&I) company in what would become the Colorado Coalfield War.

Junior owned a controlling interest in CF&I (40% of its stock) and sat on the board as an absentee director.^[6] In April , after a long period of industrial unrest, the Ludlow Massacre occurred at a tent camp occupied by striking miners. At least 20 men, women, and children died in the attack. This was followed by nine days of violence between miners, strikebreakers, the Colorado National Guard.

Although he did not order the attack that began this unrest, there are accounts to suggest Junior was mostly to blame for the violence, with the awful working conditions, death ratio, and no paid dead work which included securing unstable ceilings, workers were forced into working in unsafe conditions just to make ends meet.

In January , Junior was called to testify before the Commission on Industrial Relations. Many critics blamed Rockefeller for ordering the massacre.^[7]Margaret Sanger wrote an attack piece in her magazine The Woman Rebel, declaring, "But remember Ludlow! Remember the men and women and children who were sacrificed in order that John D.

Rockefeller Jr., might continue his noble career of charity and philanthropy as a supporter of the Christian faith."^[8][9]

He was at the time being advised by the pioneer public relations expert, Ivy Lee, and William Lyon Mackenzie King. Lee warned that the Rockefellers were losing public support and developed a strategy that Junior followed to repair it.

It was necessary for Junior to overcome his shyness, go personally to Colorado to meet with the miners and their families, inspect the conditions of the homes and the factories, attend social events, and especially to listen closely to the grievances. This was novel advice and attracted widespread media attention, which opened the way to resolve the conflict, and present a more humanized version of the Rockefellers.^[10] Mackenzie King said Rockefeller's testimony was the turning point in Junior's life, restoring the reputation of the family name; it also heralded a new era of industrial relations in the country.^[11]

During the Great Depression, he was involved in the financing, development, and construction of the Rockefeller Center, a vast office complex in midtown Manhattan, and as a result, became one of the largest real estate holders in New York City.

He was influential in attracting leading blue-chip corporations as tenants in the complex, including GE and its then affiliates RCA, NBC and RKO, as well as Standard Oil of New Jersey (now ExxonMobil), Associated Press, Time Inc, and branches of Chase National Bank (now JP Morgan Chase).

The family office, of which he was in charge, shifted from 26 Broadway to the 56th floor of the landmark 30 Rockefeller Plaza upon its completion in The office formally became "Rockefeller Family and Associates" (and informally, "Room ").

In , Junior received about 10% of the shares of the Equitable Trust Company from his father, making him the bank's largest shareholder. Subsequently, in , Equitable merged with Chase National Bank, making Chase the largest bank in the world at the time. Although his stockholding was reduced to about 4% following this merger, he was still the largest shareholder in what became known as "the Rockefeller bank".

As late as the s, the family still retained about 1% of the bank's shares, by which time his son David had become the bank's president.^[12]

In the late s, Rockefeller founded the Dunbar National Bank in Harlem. The financial institution was located within the Paul Laurence Dunbar Apartments at Eighth Avenue near th Street, servicing a primarily African-American clientele.

It was unique among New York City financial institutions in that it employed African Americans as tellers, clerks and bookkeepers as well as in key management positions. However, the bank folded after only a few years of operation.^[13][14][15]

Philanthropy and social causes

In a celebrated letter to Nicholas Murray Butler in June , subsequently printed on the front page of The New York Times, Rockefeller, a lifelong teetotaler, argued against the continuation of the Eighteenth Amendment on the principal grounds of an increase in disrespect for the law.

This letter became an important event in pushing the nation to repeal Prohibition.^[16]

Rockefeller was known for his philanthropy, giving over $ million^[17] to myriad causes over his lifetime^[18] compared to $ million to his own family.^[19] He created the Sealantic Fund in to channel gifts to his favorite causes; previously his main philanthropic organization had been the Davison Fund.

He had become the Rockefeller Foundation's inaugural president in May and proceeded to dramatically expand the scope of this institution, founded by his father. Later he would become involved in other organizations set up by Senior: Rockefeller University and the International Education Board.

In the social sciences, he founded the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial in , which was subsequently folded into the Rockefeller Foundation in ^[20] A committed internationalist, he financially supported programs of the League of Nations and crucially funded the formation and ongoing expenses of the Council on Foreign Relations and its initial headquarters building in New York in ^[21][22]

He established the Bureau of Social Hygiene in , a major initiative that investigated such social issues as prostitution and venereal disease, as well as studies in police administration and support for birth control clinics and research.

In , at the instigation of his wife, he provided crucial funding for Margaret Sanger–who had previously been a personal opponent to him due to his treatment of workers–in her work on birth control and involvement in population issues.^[23] He donated $5, to her American Birth Control League in and a second time in ^[24]

In the arts, he gave extensive property he owned on West 54th Street in Manhattan for the site of the Museum of Modern Art, which had been co-founded by his wife in

In , he purchased the George Grey Barnard collection of medieval art and cloister fragments for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

He also purchased land north of the original site, now Fort Tryon Park, for a new building, The Cloisters.^[25][26]

In November , Rockefeller came to the College of William and Mary for the dedication of an auditorium built-in memory of the organizers of Phi Beta Kappa, the honorary scholastic fraternity founded in Williamsburg in Rockefeller was a member of the society and had helped pay for the auditorium.

He had visited Williamsburg the previous March, when the Reverend Dr. W. A. R. Goodwin escorted him—along with his wife Abby, and their sons, David, Laurance, and Winthrop—on a quick tour of the city. The upshot of his visit was that he approved the plans already developed by Goodwin and launched the massive historical restoration of Colonial Williamsburg on November 22, Amongst many other buildings restored through his largesse was The College of William & Mary's Wren Building and the EpiscopalianBruton Parish Church.^[27]

In , Rockefeller hosted Bill Wilson, one of the original founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, and others at a dinner to tell their stories.

"News of this got out on the world wires; inquiries poured in again and many people went to the bookstores to get the book, Alcoholics Anonymous." Rockefeller offered to pay for the publication of the book, but in keeping with AA traditions of being self-supporting, AA rejected the money.^[28]

Through negotiations by his son Nelson, in he bought for $ million—from the major New York real estate developer William Zeckendorf—the land along the East River in Manhattan which he later donated for the United Nations headquarters.

This was after he had vetoed the family estate at Pocantico as a prospective site for the headquarters (see Kykuit).^[29] Another UN connection was his early financial support for its predecessor, the League of Nations; this included a gift to endow a major library for the League in Geneva which today still remains a resource for the UN.^[30]

A confirmed ecumenicist, over the years he gave substantial sums to Protestant and Baptist institutions, ranging from the Interchurch World Movement, the Federal Council of Churches, the Union Theological Seminary, the Cathedral of St.

John the Divine, New York's Riverside Church, and the World Council of Churches.

Biography john d rockefeller jr library With his father, he participated in the creation of notable philanthropic institutions such as the Rockefeller Institute, the General Education Board, and the Rockefeller Foundation. He may be best known for creating Rockefeller Center in New York City, funding the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg and donating the land for the U. He also contributed across sectarian lines, supporting Roman Catholic and Jewish organizations. Tools Tools.

He was also instrumental in the development of the research that led to Robert and Helen Lynd's famous Middletown studies work that was conducted in the city of Muncie, Indiana, that arose out of the financially supported Institute of Social and Religious Research.

As a follow on to his involvement in the Ludlow Massacre, Rockefeller was a major initiator with his close friend and advisor William Lyon Mackenzie King in the nascent industrial relations movement; along with major chief executives of the time, he incorporated Industrial Relations Counselors (IRC) in , a consulting firm whose main goal was to establish industrial relations as a recognized academic discipline at Princeton University and other institutions.

It succeeded through the support of prominent corporate chieftains of the time, such as Owen D. Young and Gerard Swope of General Electric.^[31]

Overseas philanthropy

In the s, he also donated a substantial amount towards the restoration and rehabilitation of major buildings in France after World War I, such as the Reims Cathedral, the Château de Fontainebleau and the Château de Versailles, for which in he was awarded France's highest decoration, the Grand-Croix de la Legion d'honneur, which also was awarded decades later to his son David Rockefeller.

He also liberally funded the notable early excavations at Luxor in Egypt, and the American School of Classical Studies for excavation of the Agora and the reconstruction of the Stoa of Attalos, both in Athens; the American Academy in Rome; Lingnan University in China; St. Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo; the library of the Imperial University in Tokyo; and the Shakespeare Memorial Endowment at Stratford-on-Avon.

In addition, he provided the funding for the construction of the Palestine Archaeological Museum in East Jerusalem – the Rockefeller Museum – which today houses many antiquities and was the home of many of the Dead Sea Scrolls until they were moved to the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum.^[32]

Conservation

He had a special interest in conservation, and purchased and donated land for many American National Parks, including Grand Teton (hiding his involvement and intentions behind the Snake River Land Company), Mesa Verde National Park,^[33]Acadia, Great Smoky Mountains, Yosemite, and Shenandoah.

In the case of Acadia National Park, he financed and engineered an extensive Carriage Road network throughout the park. Both the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway that connects Yellowstone National Park to the Grand Teton National Park and the Rockefeller Memorial in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park were named after him.

He was also active in the movement to save redwood trees, making a significant contribution to Save the Redwoods League in the s to enable the purchase of what would become the Rockefeller Forest in Humboldt Redwoods State Park. In , Rockefeller helped the federal government extend Yosemite National Park's boundary by 15, acres (&#;km²) by purchasing tracts held by timber companies for about $ million.

Rockefeller covered half of the cost.^[34]

In , he established Sleepy Hollow Restorations, which brought together under one administrative body the management and operation of two historic sites he had acquired: Philipsburg Manor House in North Tarrytown, now called Sleepy Hollow (acquired in and donated to the Tarrytown Historical Society), and Sunnyside, Washington Irving's home, acquired in He bought Van Cortland Manor in Croton-on-Hudson in and in donated it to Sleepy Hollow Restorations.

In all, he invested more than $12 million in the acquisition and restoration of the three properties that were the core of the organization's holdings. In , Sleepy Hollow Restorations became Historic Hudson Valley, which also operates the current guided tours of the Rockefeller family estate of Kykuit in Pocantico Hills.

He is the author of the noted life principle, among others, inscribed on a tablet facing his famed Rockefeller Center: "I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty".^[35]

In , Rockefeller received The Hundred Year Association of New York's Gold Medal Award, "in recognition of outstanding contributions to the City of New York." He was awarded the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in ^[36]

Family

In August , Rockefeller was invited by the powerful senator Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich of Rhode Island to join a party aboard President William McKinley's yacht, the USS Dolphin, on a cruise to Cuba.

Although the outing was of a political nature, Rockefeller's future wife, philanthropist and socialite Abigail Greene "Abby" Aldrich, was included in the large party. The two had first met in the fall of and had been courting for over four years.

Rockefeller married Abby on October 9, , in what was seen at the time as the consummate marriage of capitalism and politics.

She was a daughter of Senator Aldrich and Abigail Pearce Truman "Abby" Chapman. Moreover, their wedding was the major social event of its time – one of the most lavish of the Gilded Age. It was held at the Aldrich Mansion at Warwick Neck, Rhode Island, and attended by executives of Standard Oil and other companies.^[37]

The couple had six children; Abby in , John III in , Nelson in , Laurance in , Winthrop in , and David in

Abby died of a heart attack at the family apartment at Park Avenue in April Junior remarried in , to Martha Baird, the widow of his old college classmate Arthur Allen.

His sons, the five Rockefeller brothers, established an extensive network of social connections and institutional power over time, based on the foundations that Junior – and before him Senior – had laid down. David became a prominent banker, philanthropist and world statesman. Abby and John III became philanthropists. Laurance became a venture capitalist and conservationist.

Nelson and Winthrop Rockefeller later became state governors; Nelson went on to serve as Vice President of the United States under President Gerald Ford.

Death

Rockefeller died of pneumonia on May 11, , at the age of 86 in Tucson, Arizona, and was interred in the family cemetery in Tarrytown, with 40 family members present.^[38]

From ^[39] to , Junior lived at 13 West 54th Street in New York.

Afterward, Junior's principal residence in New York was the 9-story mansion at 10 West 54th Street, but he owned a group of properties in this vicinity, including Nos. 4, 12, 14 and 16 (some of these properties had been previously acquired by his father, John D. Rockefeller).^[40] After he vacated No. 10 in , these properties were razed and subsequently all the land was gifted to his wife's Museum of Modern Art.

In that year he moved into a luxurious room triplex apartment at Park Avenue. In , the real estate developer William Zeckendorf bought the Park Avenue apartment complex and then sold it to Rockefeller, who quickly turned the building into a cooperative, selling it on to his rich neighbors in the building.

Years later, just after his son Nelson become Governor of New York, Rockefeller helped foil a bid by greenmailerSaul Steinberg to take over Chemical Bank.

Steinberg bought Junior's apartment for $,, $25, less than it had cost new in It has since been called the greatest trophy apartment in New York, in the world's richest apartment building.^[41]

Honors and legacy

In , Junior was elected an honorary member of the Georgia Society of the Cincinnati.

In , he received The Hundred Year Association of New York's Gold Medal Award "in recognition of outstanding contributions to the City of New York." In , he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society under statute

The John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library at Brown University, completed in , is named in his honor.

See also

Citations

Further reading

• Fosdick, Raymond B. (). John D. Rockefeller, Jr.: A Portrait.
• Greenspan, Anders (). "How philanthropy can alter our view of the past: a look at Colonial Williamsburg".

  Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations. 5 (2): – doi/BF

• Hallahan, Kirk (). "Ivy Lee and the Rockefellers' response to the – Colorado coal strike". Journal of Public Relations Research. 14 (4): – doi/SXJPRR_1.
• Harvey, Charles E. (). "John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the Interchurch World Movement of – A Different Angle on the Ecumenical Movement".

  Church History.

  John d. rockefeller: Prince Harry. Rather than a career in business, Rockefeller devoted his life primarily to philanthropic and civic activities, particularly those that advanced human welfare and international, interfaith, and interracial concepts. Early Years Although John D. Aldrich of Rhode Island.

  51 (2): – doi/ JSTOR&#;

• Harvey, Charles E. (). "John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the social sciences: An introduction". Journal of the History of Sociology. 4 (2): 1–
• Henry, Robin (). "'In our image, according to our likeness': John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and reconstructing manhood in post-Ludlow Colorado".

  Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. 16 (1): doi/SX.

• Loebl, Suzanne (). America's Medicis: The Rockefellers and Their Astonishing Cultural Legacy. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN&#;. OCLC&#;
• Manchester, William (). A Rockefeller Family Portrait: From John D.

  to Nelson. Boston: Little, Brown. OCLC&#;

• Patmore, Greg (). "Employee representation plans at the Minnequa steelworks, Pueblo, Colorado, –". Business History. 49 (6): – doi/
• Rausch, Helke (). "The Birth of Transnational US Philanthropy from the Spirit of War: Rockefeller Philanthropists in World War I".

  Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. 17 (4): – doi/S

• Rees, Jonathan H. (). Representation and Rebellion: The Rockefeller Plan at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, –. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado. ISBN&#;. OCLC&#;
• Schenkel, Albert F.

  (). The rich man and the kingdom: John D. Rockefeller Jr., and the Protestant establishment. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. ISBN&#;. OCLC&#;

• Scott, Nicholas R. (). "John D. Rockefeller, Jr. & Eugenics: A Means of Social Manipulation". Journal of American History. 61: –
• Tevis, Martha May ().

  "Philanthropy at its best: The General Education Board's contributions to education, –". Journal of Philosophy & History of Education. 64 (1): 63–

Primary sources

• Rockefeller, John Davison (). Ernst, Joseph W. (ed.). Dear Father/dear Son: Correspondence of John D.

  Rockefeller and John D. Rockefeller Jr. Fordham University Press.

• Rockefeller, John Davison; Albright, Horace Marden (). Ernst, Joseph W. (ed.). Worthwhile Places: Correspondence of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Horace M. Albright. Fordham University Press.

External links