Titan summary

In 1853, Bill Rockefeller forced his family to relocate once more. From Owego, they moved to Strongsville, a prairie town near Cleveland, Ohio. Like each of their earlier changes of address to larger and more prosperous towns, this one signified a little more social upward mobility.

Rockefeller also arrived in Strongsville as a well-educated young man: his time at Owego Academy, one of the finest schools in the area, had seen to that.

The petroleum deal that marked Rockefeller’s first step to riches and fame was the one he struck with Lake Shore Railroad. It guaranteed him large rebates on transportation costs for shifting his oil. Oil itself was at the time a relatively cheap and abundant commodity, which meant that petroleum businesses that kept their margins down could remain competitive.

Rockefeller was alert to this fact. However, he had the business acumen to know that he could also give the railroad companies what they really needed: a constant supply of oil.

The wheels were in motion: Rockefeller’s Standard Oil empire kept on absorbing its competitors and grew larger and larger.

What had really made the difference was Standard Oil’s taking over more than 50 percent of refining capacity in Pittsburgh, in 1874. It had also taken over the largest refinery in Philadelphia.

By 1877, Standard Oil was operating a near monopoly in the American oil market. Only once was its status contested.

The Empire Transportation Company started offering bargain rates to woo refiners into using their own railroad tank cars instead of Standard’s. But Standard crushed the little troublemaker by underselling them.

Standard Oil’s strategy for dealing with the competition it faced in foreign markets was broadly similar to its strategy in the United States: it drastically reduced its prices and also instigated a whispering campaign smearing Russian kerosene.

By the late 1880s, Standard Oil had crushed its competitors and presided over nearly 80 percent of the global market share.

Rockefeller was hardly short of critics, and the loudest by far was Henry Demarest Lloyd. In 1894, Lloyd published Wealth Against Commonwealth, a searing indictment of the predatory capitalism that Rockefeller embodied.

However, even though the book found a wide audience, this wasn’t what Rockefeller had cause to worry about – his health was declining.

When Rockefeller retired, the average American earned just over $500 a year. Rockefeller, in contrast, was raking in nearly $10 million – and this was before income taxes were introduced in the United States!

It’s no surprise, then, that Rockefeller was held up as the epitome of wealth itself.

Ida Tarbell’s efforts to get the dirt on Rockefeller were unwavering. In fact, her work is where the muckraking school of investigative journalism got its name.

Her biggest success was finding out that Rockefeller’s mysterious father, Bill, was still alive.

Rockefeller's philanthropy had cost him millions and millions of dollars. Even though there was an element of Christian charity to his largesse, there’s no doubt it was also a concerted effort to ameliorate the press’s caricature of him.

However, while Rockefeller sought to rehabilitate himself, his company was in its death throes.

To most people, the dismembering of your life’s work might well break you. But not so for Rockefeller. The dissolution of Standard Oil left him with more money that he knew what to do with — and it just kept on growing.

Already by the early 1900s, Rockefeller had flirted with the idea of establishing a charitable trust of the like no one had seen before. The end of Standard Oil offered the means and opportunity to do just that.

Even deep into his retirement, Rockefeller remained in robust health. However, the love of his life, his wife Cettie Spelman Rockefeller, had been declining for many years.

Since 1909, she had been confined to a wheelchair. She had numerous illnesses, leaving her largely bedridden and requiring nursing at all hours.

Rockefeller’s regime was a sound one. He played golf every day and held great stead in supping a daily spoonful of olive oil. He wanted to make it to 100 and was going strong.

By 1922, not only had he outlived most of his former business partners, but also his wife, and his younger brothers Frank and William as well. They’d died in in 1917 and 1922 respectively.