John D. Rockefeller

At 97 years old, John D. Rockefeller physical status not available right now. We will update John D. Rockefeller's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Pre-Standard Oil career

Hewitt & Tuttle, a small produce commission firm in Cleveland, hired him as an assistant bookkeeper in September 1855, when Rockefeller was 16 years old. "All the methods and technologies of the office" helped him work long hours and delighted, as he later remembered. He was particularly good at estimating transportation costs, which continued to serve him well later in his career. A large part of Rockefeller's jobs involved liago canal owners, ship captains, and freight agents. He learned that published transportation rates that were supposed to be fixed could be changed depending on the weather and time of freight, as well as the use of rebates to desired shippers. When Hewitt told him to do so, hefeller was still owed the responsibility of collecting debts. Rockefeller found a persistent pestering strategy rather than relying on his father's method of collection debts. Rockefeller's three-month apprenticeship earned him $16 a month. He made $31 a month in his first year, but it was boosted to $50 a month. He was $58 a month in his last year.

Rockefeller's two main aspirations, according to reports, were to make $100,000 (equivalent to $2.91 million in 2021 dollars) and live 100 years as a youth.

Rockefeller, along with a partner, Maurice B. Clark, started the produce commission business in 1859 and raised $4,000 ($120,637) in 2021 dollars). Clark introduced the concept of the collaboration and gave the goal $2,000. At the time, the Rockefeller had only $800 to invest, but he borrowed $1,000 from his father, "Big Bill" Rockefeller, at a ten percent interest. Rockefeller's career began to grow each year. Clark & Rockefeller's first and second years of business brought in $4,400 (on nearly half a million dollars) and $17,000 worth of revenue, respectively, and their sales increased with the outbreak of the American Civil War, when the Union Army ordered massive amounts of food and equipment. Clark & Rockefeller considered crude refining when the Civil War was coming to an end, and with the possibility of those war-time revenues coming to an end, Clark & Rockefeller looked toward crude refining. Rockefeller managed his company and recruited replacement troops when his brother Frank served in the Civil War, while Rockefeller tended his farm and recruited replacement soldiers. He contributed to the Union cause, as did many wealthy Northerners who did not want to fight. "I wanted to go into the army and do my part," Rockefeller said. "But it was clearly out of question." There was no one to take my place. We were in a new market, and if I hadn't stayed, it would have stopped—and with so many people dependent on it."

Rockefeller was an abolitionist who voted for President Abraham Lincoln and embraced the then-new Republican Party. "God gave me money," the guy said, although he did not apologize for it. Following Methodist preacher John Wesley's dictum, he felt at ease and righteous, "gain all you can, save all you can, and give all you can." At the time, the federal government was subsidizing oil prices, driving the price up from $35 per barrel in 1862 to as high as $13.75. Thousands of speculators are trying to make their fortunes. The majority of people failed, but those that did not fail were not worried about being safe. They'd blow holes in the ground and gather up the oil as they could, often leading to rivers and rivers of flooded with sluggish oil in the place of water.

There was a demand for kerosene oil in the form of a kerosene. Coal had been used to extract kerosene from earlier, but its laborious extraction process and high price discouraged widespread use. Despite the high cost of freight transportation and a government levy during the Civil War (the government levied a twenty cents a gallon on refined oil), revenues on the refined product were substantial. About $13 a barrel, with a profit margin of about $5 to $8 per barrel, the refined oil price was in 1863. At that time, the capital expenditures for a refinery were modest – from $1,000 to $1,500 – with only a handful of guys required to operate. In this period of a burgeoning industrial city in Cleveland, the partners switched from food to oil, creating an oil refinery in 1863. Andrews, Clark & Company, was the refinery, which was owned directly by Clark & Rockefeller, chemist Samuel Andrews, and M. B. Clark's two brothers. At that time, the commercial oil industry was still in its infancy. Whale oil had become prohibitive to the masses, so a simpler, general-purpose lighting fuel was needed.

Although other refineries will hold the 60 percent of the oil product that became kerosene, but with a 40 percent increase in rivers and massive sludge piles, Rockefeller converted the gasoline to fuel the refinery and sold the remainder as lubricating oil, petroleum jelly, and paraffin wax, as well as other by-products. Tar was used for paving and naphtha delivery to gas plants. In the same way, Rockefeller's refineries employed their own plumbers, significantly lowering the cost of pipe-laying in half. When Rockefeller bought the wood and had them built for himself, the Barrels that cost $2.50 each ended up only $0.96. Rockefeller purchased the Clark brothers for $72,500 (equivalent to $1 million in 2021 dollars) at auction in February 1865, the firm of Rockefeller & Andrews was later described as a "critical" move by oil industry historian Daniel Yergin. "It was the day that determined my future," Rockefeller said. He was well positioned to profit from postwar reconstruction and westward expansion aided by railroad expansion and an oil-fueled economy. He borrowed heavily, reinvested earnings, adapted quickly to emerging markets, and fielded observers to keep up with the quickly expanding market.

William Rockefeller Jr., John's brother, established another refinery in Cleveland in 1866 and welcomed John into the company. Henry Morrison Flagler became a partner in 1867, and the firm of Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler was established. By 1868, the company owned two Cleveland refineries and a marketing subsidiary in New York, with Rockefeller still investing in the company's successful lending, monitoring costs, and using refineries' waste; it was the world's largest oil refinery. Andrews & Flagler, a founder of the Standard Oil Company, was Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler.

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