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Top 10 Unbelievable Facts about John D Rockefeller

John Davison Rockefeller Sr. was a corporate entrepreneur and philanthropist from the United States.

He is often regarded as the wealthiest American of all time, as well as the wealthiest individual in modern history.

The Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first big American commercial trust, was created by John D. Rockefeller

Later in life, he focused on charity. He made it feasible for the University of Chicago to be founded and funded important charitable institutions.

Let’s discuss the top 10 unbelievable facts about John D. Rockefeller.

1. Children and adults used to get dimes from Rockefeller.

Dime Head – Flickr

Rockefeller carried a bag of dimes around with him and presented one to everyone he met, particularly children, with tremendous enthusiasm. He struck up a conversation with the dazzling dime he’d just given.

Rockefeller adored seeing children’s faces light up when they received a dime and encouraged them to save it. Rockefeller’s gleaming dimes served as both a symbol and a message.

Adults were also reported to have received coins from Rockefeller. He allegedly did this in part to instill saving and thrifty tendencies in individuals.

As a memento, several of them kept their famed “Rockefeller dimes.” He also donated dimes to folks like Harvey Firestone, the tire magnate, and President Herbert Hoover as a joke.

2. The father of John D. Rockefeller was a con artist.

William Avery Rockefeller – Wikipedia

William Avery Rockefeller’s father, William Avery Rockefeller, was a snake-oil salesman who pretended to be a deaf-mute peddler in order to sell miracle cures and herbal therapies

He’d hand out paperwork referring to himself as “doctor” and claiming to have discovered a cancer “cure.”

William Rockefeller continued to peddle “medicine” under the name William Levingston, and his tombstone had that name when he died in 1906.

3. In the Civil War, he hired a replacement soldier to fight in his place.

Civil war battleground – Flickr

During the civil war, he had someone else serve in his place. The United States government permitted this technique by allowing draftees to provide a replacement.

For being the primary source of support for his family, Rockefeller was granted an exemption. He explained, “I wanted to join the army and do my bit. However, it was ruled out. No one was willing to fill my shoes. We were in a new business, and if I hadn’t stayed, it would have failed—especially because so many people relied on it.”

The Civil War enriched Rockefeller’s commodity company handsomely, allowing him to enter the oil sector with the necessary funds.

4. Rockefeller made hundreds of millions of dollars from the court-ordered breakup of Standard Oil.

Standard Oil company, 1948 – Flickr

Ida Tarbell, the daughter of one of Rockefeller’s business rivals, resolved to settle the score with Rockefeller by authoring a 19-part expose for McClure’s magazine in 1900.

In 1911, the United States Supreme Court declared that Standard Oil had broken federal antitrust laws and had to be destroyed. The monopoly was split into 34 different companies.

Individual sections of the corporation were worth more than the whole, and when the value of individual companies’ shares doubled and tripled in their early years, Rockefeller became the country’s first billionaire, with a fortune worth about 2% of the whole American economy.

5. Rockefeller did everything he could to get control of the oil business.

Petroleum sample – Wikipedia

Standard Oil owned and controlled 90% of all refineries in the United States by 1882. Rockefeller’s fortune sprang from his fixation with controlling the oil industry.

He made partnerships with railroads to distribute his goods inexpensively, bought out other businesses, and helped to establish the modern concept of a monopoly.

Smaller firms were forced to choose between being consumed or competing with his big conglomerate. Starting in a six-week period in 1872 known as “the Cleveland Massacre,” when he acquired 22 of 26 competing refineries at relatively low prices, he leveraged his large profits to buy out competitors.

6. Alopecia struck Rockefeller, and he lost all the hair on his body and head.

John D. Rockefeller, his mustache had fallen off due to alopecia – Wikipedia

During his 50s, Rockefeller struggled with depression and stomach issues. In his 40s, all the hair on Rockefeller’s head, mustache, and body were lost.

Later on, however, the hair never came back since he had generalized alopecia. The tycoon began wearing rotating wigs of varying lengths in the early 1900s to give the idea that his hair was growing and being shaved.

7. Every year, Rockefeller commemorated the day he got his first job.

John D. Rockefeller, aged 18 – Wikipedia

At the age of 16, on September 16, 1855, he got his first meaningful job as a grain and coal supplier/shipper.

On this day, Rockefeller considered himself to have made his professional business debut. The corporate tycoon observed “workday,” which he regarded as more important than his birthday and celebrated every year.

8. He aided in the reduction of hookworms in the United States

Hookworms – Wikipedia

With a contribution of $1 million in 1909, John D. Rockefeller established the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the Eradication of Hookworm Disease (RSC).

The Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the Eradication of Hookworm Disease, which operated up to 1914, was a philanthropic public health project whose three objectives were to quantify hookworm incidence in the American South, offer treatment, and eradicate the disease.

9. He’s considered the richest person in history.

Dollars – Flickr

John died in 1937, three years shy of his 100th birthday, as the wealthiest man of his generation, if not all time.

His holdings amounted to 1.5 percent of America’s total economic output, or $340 billion in today’s money.

He retired in his late 50s and spent the next 40 years of his life living the high life, including building Kykuit, a six-story residence on a sprawling Westchester County estate, and The Eyrie, a 100-room vacation home on Maine’s Mount Desert Island.

He also had a large estate on New York’s West 54th Street, which is now home to the Museum of Modern Art, which was co-founded by his granddaughter, Abby Rockefeller.

10. Winston Churchill was approached by the Rockefeller family to write a biography for them.

Sir Winston Churchill – Wikipedia

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was a British statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. He is best known for his wartime leadership as Prime Minister.

During the 1930s, the Rockefeller family approached Winston Churchill, to write an authorized biography of their patriarch, but Churchill’s proposed advance of $250,000 was too much for the Rockefellers’ deep pockets, so they turned to Columbia University historian Allan Nevins