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

John D. Rockefeller was a business mogul who dominated the oil industry in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, amassing the largest private fortune of any American at that time. He was also a generous benefactor who revolutionized philanthropy. Chernow examines at length both the relentlessly-acquisitive and the historically-charitable manifestations of Rockefeller’s complex personality.

Born in 1839 in Richford, New York, Rockefeller was the first son of a pious mother and a bigamist father. Chernow suggests that Rockefeller’s life reflects the influences of both parents, for he seems to have inherited his mother’s sincerity and his father’s duplicity. Rockefeller adored his mother and embraced her Baptist faith, which gave direction and higher purpose to his life. As a teenager living near Cleveland in the early 1850s, Rockefeller had to drop out of high school and get a job after his absentee father abandoned the family for good.

At 16, Rockefeller thrived as a bookkeeper, and a few years later he formed a partnership and went into business for himself as a merchant. In the early 1860s, he and several of his associates entered the oil business, where he eventually made his fortune. In 1864, Rockefeller married Laura Celestia (“Cettie”) Spelman, an intelligent young woman and kindred spirit who shared his faith and his values.

From the early 1860s to his retirement from business in 1897, Rockefeller secured and then exerted near-dictatorial power over the oil industry. Determined to impose order on an infant industry (the first oil strike in nearby northwestern Pennsylvania occurred in 1859), Rockefeller worked tirelessly to eliminate what he regarded as wasteful competition. In 1870 he founded Standard Oil, and within a few years, he had bought up nearly all of Cleveland’s oil refineries. He built pipelines, tank cars, and storage facilities. He recruited like-minded men to Standard Oil, and together they consolidated the oil industry, often using controversial and even unethical means, such as secret deals with railroads and outright bribery of public officials. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil trust, formed in 1882, served as a model for consolidation in other industries. It also attracted intense criticism from muckraking journalists such as Ida Tarbell, as well as from government trustbusters.

Rockefeller’s philanthropic efforts intensified after his retirement from Standard Oil in 1897. Chernow notes that Rockefeller began donating to charities as early as the 1850s, for he was very sincere in his belief that God entrusted him with money in part so he could give it away and do good in the world. He established the Spelman Seminary in Atlanta in 1882 and the University of Chicago a decade later. In retirement, however, Rockefeller shifted his focus to medicine, funding science through the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. Later, he created the gargantuan Rockefeller Foundation, through which he gave away hundreds of millions of dollars in America and around the world. Rockefeller died in 1937.  

Laura Celestia (“Cettie”) Spelman married John D. Rockefeller in 1864. Together they had five children, four of whom lived to adulthood. John and Cettie shared nearly identical values, and their marriage appears to have been free from serious strife.

Daughter of Harvey and Lucy Spelman, abolitionists and temperance advocates, Cettie grew up in a devout Christian family. She was supremely capable and intellectually curious, earning high school valedictorian honors and then working as a teacher. After marrying Rockefeller, she gave up her teaching job and devoted herself to becoming a full-time mother, growing more rigid in her Baptist religious beliefs as time passed. She also had serious yet mysterious nervous ailments that often left her incapacitated. She died in 1915.

Chernow regards Cettie’s loss of intellectual, spiritual, and physical vibrancy as one of the most frustratingly inexplicable elements of the Rockefeller story. 

Rockefeller’s mother, Eliza Davison, married William Avery Rockefeller in 1837. She then lived a painful and solitary life, as her husband abandoned her to wander the country, reappearing a few times each year until the early 1850s when he left her for good. Eliza was a devout Baptist and a resilient woman who appears to have been responsible for her son’s most admirable qualities: patience, fortitude, gentleness, generosity, and devotion. Rockefeller adored his mother. She remained in the Cleveland area until her death in 1889. She is buried next to her son and his wife, Cettie.

Rockefeller’s father, William Avery, was a larger-than-life figure: charming, talented, gregarious, and a pathological liar. Rockefeller spent most of his life trying to erase his father from memory.

After marrying Eliza Davison in 1837, Bill disappeared for months at a time, only to return unexpectedly, usually flush with cash. Among other things, Bill operated as a traveling salesman, a con-man who peddled phony medicinal remedies to unsuspecting and often desperate rustics. In upstate New York, Bill moved his family several times, from Richford to Moravia, and finally to Owego near the Pennsylvania border, in part perhaps to evade the law, for he was also a reputed horse thief with a rape indictment (though he was never arrested for either). Finally, the Rockefellers settled near Cleveland, Ohio, likely so Bill could visit Margaret Allen, a young woman from Ontario, Canada, across Lake Erie, whom he had charmed, and whom he married while still married to Eliza. Bill’s career as a bigamist lasted for more than a half century until his death in 1906. In the meantime, he appeared only sporadically in his famous son’s life.

Chernow regards Bill as a profound psychological influence on Rockefeller, who was determined to forget his father and probably never forgave him. On the other hand, there is no doubt that Rockefeller inherited Bill’s capacity to lie, without which his tenure at Standard Oil would not have unfolded as it did or been as controversial as it was.

Youngest child and only son of John and Cettie Rockefeller, Junior became one of the principal trustees of Rockefeller philanthropy and the primary heir to the Rockefeller fortune.

Junior grew up in a strict Baptist household, and he spent much time alone on sprawling family estates. By the time he entered college, he was nervous and insecure. Luckily, he made a fabulous choice of partners when he married Abby Aldrich, daughter of a senator, a confident and easygoing young woman who brought out the best in Junior and helped him as he struggled to find his way in the world. After college, Junior went to work for Standard Oil, but he did not find his true calling until he began working with Frederick T. Gates on Rockefeller’s philanthropic ventures.

Rockefeller’s son plays such an important role in the second half of the book that at times Titan takes on the appearance of a mini-biography of Junior. Chernow describes Junior as a dutiful son who revered his father while at the same time struggling with Standard Oil’s legacy. Junior also appears at his best when his conscience and his confidence develop together, as in the 1913-1914 labor crisis in Colorado, when Junior set his own course by departing from his father’s views on unions. In philanthropy, Junior eventually became more of a conservationist than his father ever had been. During the Great Depression, Junior financed and developed the Rockefeller Center office complex in midtown Manhattan. By then, he had emerged as the public face of the Rockefeller family.

Daughter of Nelson Aldrich, a powerful Republican senator, Abby married John D. Rockefeller, Jr. in 1901. Together, they had six children. Apart from Junior’s frequent expressions of distaste for Abby’s beloved modern art, they appear to have endured no serious marital strife.

Abby emerges as one of Titan’s strongest characters. Confident, capable, and easygoing, she was the perfect complement to her high-strung husband. In fact, Abby was Junior’s sanctuary, so much so that their children sometimes felt that Junior regarded them as rivals for Abby’s affection, which he often tried to monopolize. One senses that Abby could have destroyed Junior emotionally. Instead, she allowed him to thrive and served as a constant source of strength. She also flourished in her own right, particularly in her patronage of the arts and also as a liberal-minded advocate for various social causes.

The Rockefellers’ eldest daughter, Bessie was the only one of the girls to attend college. She married Charles Strong in 1889. Parts of her life remain a mystery, but from her few surviving letters, Chernow describes her as a lively and appealing young woman. In later years, however, Bessie developed an illness, likely the effect of a stroke or heart condition, which left her physically and cognitively incapacitated. She passed away at the age of 40.

The youngest of the three Rockefeller daughters, Edith was also the most rebellious. She married Harold McCormick and had four children, two of whom died before the age of five. These tragedies left both Edith and Harold despondent. A free-spirit in her childhood and adolescence, Edith suddenly developed severe agoraphobia. Desperate to relieve her anxiety, she sailed for Europe to receive treatment from the famous Swiss psychiatrist Dr. Carl Jung. She embraced Jung’s methods and became a staunch advocate of psychoanalysis, though she continued to have symptoms of mental illness. Despite her enthusiasm for therapy, Edith never overcame her nervous condition. She and Harold divorced. She also drifted away from her family and communicated only infrequently with her father. She died in 1932.

The middle of three Rockefeller daughters, Alta was the only one who did not have a debilitating nervous ailment. As a young woman, she often made poor romantic choices; in marrying Ezra Parmalee Prentice, Alta—like her sister Bessie—chose a husband whose withdrawn and cold personality resembled that of her father. Alta spent much of her married life living in relative rural seclusion. Like Edith, she received a comparatively paltry bequest of $12 million in trust—a spectacular sum to nearly everyone on Earth but very little compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars Rockefeller settled on Junior.

The son of a Baptist minister, and a former pastor in his own right, Gates began working with Rockefeller to establish the University of Chicago in the early 1890s. For the next few decades, Gates effectively served as Rockefeller’s lead advisor on all philanthropic ventures.

Much like Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Gates emerges from Titan as one of the most admirable figures in Rockefeller’s orbit. A man of remarkably sound judgment, Gates investigated some of Rockefeller’s business investments and even saved his boss from a few very poor decisions. In later years, Rockefeller identified Gates as the greatest businessman he ever knew. Most of all, Gates was the driving force behind Rockefeller’s charitable beneficence. Gates conducted thorough research, wrote clear reports, and steered Rockefeller in the directions he knew the titan wanted to go with his money: More than any other figure, Gates is responsible for Rockefeller’s gargantuan contributions to medical research. At Standard Oil, Gates also mentored Junior and guided the younger Rockefeller toward the philanthropic focus that eventually would shape Junior’s legacy.