Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

Standard Oil faces a legal challenge from Ohio. A state Supreme Court decision in 1892 rules that the 1882 Standard Oil trust agreement is illegal under Ohio law. Standard Oil reconstitutes its executive committee so as to conform to the law, but the decision, like other antitrust actions, has no material effect on operations at 26 Broadway. The US economy suffers a downturn, a serious depression known as the Panic of 1893. Standard Oil is so large—it operates on most occasions as its own bank—that the panic has little effect on the trust. Rockefeller lends millions to companies or individuals devastated by the depression.

In the midst of the panic, Henry Demarest Lloyd publishes Wealth against Commonwealth (1894), the most concentrated and influential critique of Standard Oil yet to appear in print. Lloyd brings more passion than accuracy to his study of industrial consolidation, but “the book had a profound and lasting impact and ranks as a classic of muckraking literature” (340). As he enters his mid-50s, Rockefeller appears at 26 Broadway with diminishing frequency. In 1897, Rockefeller yields day-to-day control of Standard Oil to his successor, John D. Archbold, and enters retirement.

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (“Junior”) enters Brown University in 1893. After a stifling childhood filled with religious maxims and guilt-inducing warnings about succumbing to temptation, Junior struggles to emerge from his shell. He is neither haughty nor vicious, however, so he gets along well with classmates. Most of all, Junior is trying to find his place in the world. He meets his future wife Abby Aldrich, the daughter of Senator Nelson Aldrich, a powerful Republican friendly to trusts. Confident and down-to-earth, Abby breezes into Junior’s life like a breath of fresh air, allowing him to relax, at least in her presence. In 1897, the year Senior retires from Standard Oil, Junior begins working at 26 Broadway. Frederick T. Gates takes Junior under his wing and steers the young heir toward work in the Rockefeller philanthropies, which suits Junior’s temperament. When Junior makes a terrible mistake in the stock market, the supportive Senior bails him out without resorting to chastisement. On October 9, 1901, Junior marries Abby.

Chapter 20, the book’s second-longest, focuses on a small group of men around Rockefeller who exerted tremendous influence at 26 Broadway and on Wall Street.

First, the chapter describes the background and contributions of Frederick T. Gates, who in 1891 begins working directly with Rockefeller on philanthropic initiatives. Gates admires Rockefeller but also speaks frankly, which the titan appreciates. After Rockefeller retires from Standard Oil in 1897, John D. Archbold decides to pay out higher dividends to shareholders, a strategy Rockefeller always resisted, but which now swells his fortune to such a degree that he needs Gates’s assistance in determining the best way to donate it. Gates also investigates several large purchases of iron and mining, and discovers that Rockefeller, a surprisingly mediocre investor outside the oil industry, has been swindled. Rockefeller allows Gates to dispense the titan’s immense fortune, but also never to touch his Standard Oil stock.

On Wall Street, Rockefeller maintains an ambivalent relationship with J.P. Morgan, king of the financiers. Wall Street is also alive with rumors of a secretive faction called the Standard Oil Crowd that manipulates the market in the same way that the trust manipulates the oil industry. One member of this crowd is Henry H. Rogers, a longtime associate of Rockefeller’s who, much to the titan’s chagrin, grows more extravagant and impetuous as the years pass. In their investments, Rogers and Rockefeller’s brother William tend to be more reckless than Rockefeller himself would tolerate. Rogers is also a close friend of famed author Mark Twain.

Meanwhile, Gates encourages Rockefeller to invest in the Minnesota Iron Company, which holds immense deposits of iron ore on the Mesabi Range. Rockefeller then constructs his own fleet of ships on Lake Superior to transport the iron ore. All of these machinations outside the oil industry bring Rockefeller into direct conflict with Andrew Carnegie, the nation’s leading steel tycoon, who rightly views the rise of iron ore as a threat to his own monopoly on coke and coal. As Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Morgan inch toward consolidation in the steel industry—each tycoon loathes ruinous competition—the 1896 election of William McKinley ensures a favorable business climate to smooth the way. Rockefeller and Morgan play petty games while sizing up one another, but the end result is the creation of US Steel in 1901, which produces a 16-fold increase in the value of Rockefeller’s original investment.