John D. Rockefeller

John Davison Rockefeller was born in Richford, New York, the son of a traveling salesman and a devout Baptist mother. He grew up in Ohio, studied bookkeeping, and at sixteen took a job as an assistant bookkeeper in Cleveland, keeping careful ledgers all his life. In 1863 he invested in an oil refinery, and in 1870 he founded the Standard Oil Company. By cutting costs, making use of every by-product, securing secret discounts from railroads, and buying out or driving out rivals, Standard Oil came to control about ninety percent of oil refining in the United States. Critics such as the journalist Ida Tarbell exposed its methods, and in 1911 the Supreme Court ordered the company broken up under antitrust law. Rockefeller became the richest person in America. A lifelong churchgoer who tithed from his first wages, he gave away over 500 million dollars, founding the University of Chicago, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, and the Rockefeller Foundation, which fought hookworm and yellow fever. He died in 1937, aged ninety-seven.

Faith: A devoted member of the Baptist church. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911) (via Wikisource)