How much did rockefeller donate

A natural businessman with a strong moral sense and intense religious convictions, he dedicated unprecedented resources to charity. Within his lifetime, Rockefeller helped launch the field of biomedical research, funding scientific investigations that resulted in vaccines for things like meningitis and yellow fever. He championed the cause of public sanitation, creating schools of public health at Johns Hopkins and Harvard, and helped lead major international public-health efforts against hookworm, malaria, yellow fever, and other maladies.

He vigorously promoted the cause of education nationwide, without distinction of sex, race, or creed. Born in upstate New York in , Rockefeller was the son of a strait-laced, deeply devout Baptist mother and a boisterous, fun-loving father who called himself a travelling salesman but was really a flimflam man.

The young Rockefeller, serious and somewhat humorless by nature, was much more influenced by his mother. A lifelong adherent of the northern Baptist church, he neither drank nor smoked.

As a boy, his family moved frequently. In they settled in Strongsville, Ohio, a suburb of rapidly expanding Cleveland. Rockefeller attended a local high school and took a week course in bookkeeping. At age 16 he got his first job, as a bookkeeper at a brokerage of fresh produce. He was soon tithing to the Baptist church.

That year Rockefeller and a partner opened a brokerage of their own, Rockefeller and Clark, that traded not only produce but petroleum products as well. Cleveland, with its proximity to the Pennsylvania oil fields and its excellent transportation network, quickly became the center of petroleum refining.

In , Rockefeller and partners opened their own refinery. In Rockefeller bought out his partners and established a new firm with the chemist Samuel Andrews. The Rockefeller system of philanthropy was not to undertake directly the alleviation of a situation or condition that seemed to need correcting, but to provide the funds for a research group to carry out the work.

His charity system was not without its critics. There were those who said that his benevolent trusts served to entrench privileged interests and promote class education.

His gifts were denounced as being made with tainted money, an indirect slap at his business methods. A list of Mr. Rockefeller's organized charities shows that he was chiefly interested in education, scientific research, the Baptist Church and other religious or social organizations.

It received up to from Mr. This organization was formed "to promote the well-being of mankind throughout the world. World-wide in scope, its activities were largely directed to medical research in recent years. The annual report declared it to be devoted to the "advancement of knowledge with research as the chief tool.

It does no research of its own. The Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, founded in , concerned itself with public administration of government activities through the clearance of information promotion of experiences among officials and government units the demonstration of innovation and installation of improved administration methods and devices.

Among his activities, he funded the establishment of the University of Chicago and the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research now Rockefeller University. In his personal life, Rockefeller was devoutly religious, a temperance advocate and an avid golfer. His goal was to reach the age of ; however, he died at 97 on May 23, , at The Casements, his winter home in Ormond Beach, Florida. He was buried at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland.

But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. His father was a con artist and a bigamist. When he was a child, John D. Rockefeller watched his father count his money—huge wads of which he refused to keep in a bank and lovingly stacked in front of his impressionable son. The 19th century was a period of great change and rapid industrialization.

The iron and steel industry spawned new construction materials, the railroads connected the country and the discovery of oil provided a new source of fuel.

The discovery of the Spindletop geyser in Franklin D. With the country mired in the depths of the Great Depression, Roosevelt immediately acted to restore public confidence, proclaiming a bank holiday and John Adams was a leader of the American Revolution and served as the second U. The Massachusetts-born, Harvard-educated Adams began his career as a lawyer. Sep 4, , pm EDT. Aug 28, , pm EDT. Aug 27, , pm EDT. Edit Story. Jul 11, , am EDT. Carl O'Donnell Forbes Staff. Carl O'Donnell.