John Davison Rockefeller was born on July 8, 1839 in Richmond, New York. He was the second child of six born to William Avery and Eliza Davison Rockefeller. John¡¯s father was a pitchman. Because his father traveled and was gone for months, he was raised by his mother, who was very religious and disciplined. She taught her children to work, to save and to give to charities.

John left high school in 1855 and took a six-month business course at Folsom Mercantile College. He completed the course in three months and began searching for a job as a bookkeeper or clerk in Cleveland. After six weeks, Hewitt & Tuttle, a small company of produce shippers, employed him as an assistant bookkeeper. Rockefeller worked hard and impressed his employers, arranging complicated transportation deals and moving freight by railroad, canal and lake boats.

In 1859, John entered into business for himself, forming a partnership with a neighbor, Maurice Clark. Each man put up $2,000. John had $1,000 he had saved and he borrowed the other $1,000 from his father. Due to Rockefeller¡¯s natural business abilities, Clark & Rockefeller became very successful.

In 1870, John organized The Standard Oil Company with his brother William. He felt the inefficiency of the smaller firms, in their attempts to survive, drove the prices down below the production costs and hurt the larger, more efficient firms like his own. By 1872, Standard Oil had purchased and controlled nearly all the refining firms in Cleveland.

In 1896, Rockefeller decided to give up leadership of the day-to-day business of Standard Oil and focused his efforts on philanthropy. Ever since he was a boy following his mother¡¯s teachings, he had contributed to his church and other charities, and from the mid 1890¡¯s until his death in 1937, Rockefeller¡¯s activities were all philanthropic.

Rockefeller established a series of institutions that are important in the history of American philanthropy, science, medicine and public health. Rockefeller died on May 23, 1937 at the age of 97.