Narration of John D. Rockefeller's biography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller

John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is widely considered the wealthiest American of all time, and the richest person in modern history.

Rockefeller was born into a large family in upstate New York that moved several times before eventually settling in Cleveland, Ohio. Rockefeller became an assistant bookkeeper at age 16 and went into several business partnerships beginning at age 20, concentrating his business on oil refining. Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company in 1870. He ran it until 1897, and remained its largest shareholder.

Rockefeller's wealth soared as kerosene and gasoline grew in importance, and he became the richest person in the country, controlling 90% of all oil in the United States at his peak. Oil was used throughout the country as a light source until the introduction of electricity, and as a fuel after the invention of the automobile. Furthermore, Rockefeller gained enormous influence over the railroad industry which transported his oil around the country. Standard Oil was the first great business trust in the United States. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and, through corporate and technological innovations, was instrumental in both widely disseminating and drastically reducing the production cost of oil. His company and business practices came under criticism, particularly in the writings of author Ida Tarbell.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1911 that Standard Oil must be dismantled for violation of federal antitrust laws. It was broken up into 34 separate entities, which included companies that became ExxonMobil, Chevron Corporation, and others—some of which still have the highest level of revenue in the world. Individual pieces of the company were worth more than the whole, as shares of these doubled and tripled in value in their early years; consequently, Rockefeller became the country's first billionaire, with a fortune worth nearly 2% of the national economy. His peak net worth was estimated at US$418 billion (in 2019 dollars; inflation-adjusted) in 1913. The 409 billion figure assumes a 2% share of US GDP in 2016. His personal wealth, 900 million in 1913, more than 2% of US GDP of 39.1 billion that year was worth 21 billion dollars in 2016 adjusted for inflation (by 1937 the Rockefeller fortune was 1.4 billion or 1.5% of GDP of 92 billion).

Rockefeller spent much of the last 40 years of his life in retirement at his estate in Westchester County, New York, defining the structure of modern philanthropy, along with other key industrialists such as steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. His fortune was mainly used to create the modern systematic approach of targeted philanthropy through the creation of foundations that had a major effect on medicine, education, and scientific research. His foundations pioneered the development of medical research and were instrumental in the near-eradication of hookworm and yellow fever in the United States.

Image Credit:

By The Rockefeller Archive Center, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2491759