In 1896, Frederick Gates was elected board member, joined the following year by his son, John D. Jr.
20
Rockefeller’s great grandson, David Rockefeller, became a board member in 1947, and would have close ties to the university throughout his life as advisor to several of its principals.
21
Rockefeller had high ambitions for the university right from the start and appointed the young innovative William Rainey Harper as its first president.
22
Success soon followed and the University of Chicago became one of the world's most distinguished universities, with a significant impact on the scientific, political, cultural and social development of the 20th century.
As of October 2019, one hundred Nobel laureates have been affiliated with the university. Several disciplines were developed there of benefit to Rockefeller's power base, including economy, sociology, and behavioural sciences. It also spawned neoclassical economics, known as the Chicago school of economics, and part of the
Manhattan Project
.
Several decades later, in 1940, Swedish Carl-Gustaf Rossby was elected chair to the Department of Meteorology at the University of Chicago, which would emerge as a leading center for studying the impact of carbon dioxide on the greenhouse effect.
Despite the
enormous
success of Standard Oil, John D. Sr. viewed the University of Chicago as the best investment of his life.
PUBLIC RELATIONS
Negative Publicity
Soon, however, there were problems for Rockefeller Senior, which forced him to return to the bustle of Standard Oil.
In an investigative article series, “The History of the Standard Oil Company” 1902–1904, journalist Ida M. Tarbell had revealed the company's shady business practices. The series, later published as a book, reached a large audience.
23
It inspired several anti-trust acts and in 1906 led to Standard Oil being accused of conspiring to prevent free trade.
Already in 1890 the Sherman Antitrust Act had been adopted to counteract monopolies. Following a court order in 1892, Rockefeller had still managed to avoid the breaking up of Standard Oil by creating the holding company, Standard Oil Company of New Jersey.
In 1911, the law finally caught up with Rockefeller, resulting in Standard Oil being divided into 34 smaller companies. The most powerful were Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, using the brands Jersey Standard and ESSO (S.O., which later became Exxon) and Standard Oil Company of New York (which became Mobil) and had its head office in the Rockefeller Center. The damage, however, turned out to be minimal as Rockefeller had been well prepared for this eventuality. At the time of the break-up, Rockefeller owned 25% of the shares and retained the same percentage of shares in all the new companies. In a short period of time, the original value of his stock increased fivefold, while he retained control over all the companies.
Many years later, these companies would slowly begin merging again. Today, the remnants of Standard Oil can be found in ExxonMobil and Chevron, while BP acquired most of the rest (a few were acquired by Shell and Unilever). These companies still retain the rights to the name Standard.
Rockefeller Foundation
In order to improve his tarnished reputation as a ruthless industrialist – and avoid taxation
–
John D. Rockefeller in 1913 founded the Rockefeller Foundation. It had been carefully prepared for several years and was a development of the General Education Board, based on the ideas of Frederick Gates. The plan was to run Rockefeller Foundation with the same efficiency as Standard Oil. Some of the sharpest minds in the country were invited to the board of directors. The foundation still has close ties to the political and business elites of the U.S.
The
capital was based on shares in the family's oil companies. During its first year, John D. Senior transferred $100 million to the foundation.
24
By 1929, $300 million in share capital had been transferred from Standard Oil. The foundation became another pillar of the empire.
After the creation of Rockefeller Foundation, John D. Senior withdrew from his commitments. He remained a nominal board member until 1923 but did not participate in any meetings. His position was instead left to his son, John Jr., first as president and 1917–1939 as chairman.
John D. Rockefeller Jr.
Like his father, John Jr. was reserved and disciplined and the responsibilities would at times weigh heavily on his shoulders, always working in the shadow of his legendary father. With time, however, he matured into his position as custodian of his family’s immense fortune and its growing economic, philanthropic and political influence.
Nelson W. Aldrich
The Rockefeller family grew even more powerful when John D. Junior in 1901 married socialite Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, daughter of Republican Senator Nelson W. Aldrich. The marriage can be seen as an early example of a public–private partnership, as it combined the powers of the richest family in the United States with that of one of its most influential politicians at the time. Senator Aldrich’s connections in the political and economic establishment was of considerable value to the Rockefellers, and would later inspire the political aspirations of the second son to John and Abby, Nelson Rockefeller. Aldrich, who was also a prominent Freemason, was known as “the general manager of the nation.” He defended the interests of Big Business, introduced the income tax (1909) and laid the foundation for the Federal Reserve System through the Aldrich Plan (1911).
25
Aldrich was as despised as Rockefeller Senior due to his business–friendly policies, allegations of corruption, and investments in and support for the ruthless Belgian King Léopold’s colony in Congo. He died of a stroke in 1915.
Abby’s more outgoing and relaxed attitude towards life, however, brought an element of liveliness and progressiveness into the strict Baptist family and promptly declared her refusal to conform to any restraints.
26
Rockefeller Center
One of John D. Juniors major achievements was the planning of Rockefeller Center; 21 buildings for offices, culture, and commerce (including Radio City Music Hall, RCA Building, Time Life Building) built in 1929–1940. The center became a visible symbol of his father’s achievements – the great benefactor, the brilliant businessman, and an icon for his heirs to admire.
During the period 1933–2015, the family head office was located in the legendary Room 5600 on the 56th floor of the central building, 30 Rockefeller Plaza (RCA Building, later GE Building). This was the control center of the empire. John D. Jr. had a private elevator installed that would take him from his office straight down to the vault in the basement.
27
The Ludlow Massacre
In 1914 something happened that would greatly affect the family’s reputation. Via holdings in the
Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, John Jr. was the chief owner of a coal mine in Ludlow, Colorado, where workers were on strike for better working conditions.
The company refused to agree to their demands, resulting in a massacre where twenty-one workers, women, and children where shot to death with machine guns when the company guards and the state national guard attacked the tent camp, and many more deaths in the ensuing skirmishes.
28
This tragedy weighed heavily on John Junior.
Margaret Sanger wrote a scathing article against the company owners in her magazine
The Woman Rebel,
where she described them as worse than cannibals.
Cannibals, you see, are uncivilized, primitive folk, low in the scale of human intelligence. Their tastes are not so fastidious, so refined, so Christian, as those of our great American coal operators, who have subsidized the State of Colorado, and treat the President of the United States as an office boy—these leering, bloody hyenas of the human race who smear themselves with the stinking honey of Charity to attract those foul flies of religion who spread pollution throughout the land.
29
Public hatred against the super-capitalists was now at its peak.
Public Relations
To clean up the Rockefeller family image, press agent Ivy Lee was recruited. John D. Senior had an old habit of handing out dimes to adults and nickles to children – with an admonition to save them and work hard.
30
Ivy Lee made sure these small acts of generosity were captured on photos and news reels. After a few years of effective PR campaigns, the image of the family began to change into one of generous philanthropists.
Some years later, several major nationwide newspapers, including
Time Magazine
and
Newsweek
, were acquired by Senior and his banking colleague, J. P. Morgan, to be used as their own propaganda channels. John D. Sr, who had been quite offended by Tarbell's articles, wanted to prevent any major newspaper from writing anything unflattering about him ever again.
31
Propaganda Techniques
The Rockefeller Foundation also made substantial donations for the study of propaganda techniques and how to influence people’s behaviour and decision making, both through politics and media.
Harold Lasswell (1902–1978) from the University of Chicago proposed that people needed to gradually get used to new ideas and measures. Would–be propagandists were recommended to introduce and slowly nurture these by well-developed long-term campaigns. Emotionally loaded symbols should be created in order to generate specific responses, to be used for large-scale mass action. These propaganda tools would then be offered to a technocratic elite of scientists.
32
Another suggested method of
influencing
was to cooperate with established authorities and institutions, point out solvable problems and encouraging them to assume responsibility for its long-term solution. This has proven a successful concept. Many international organisations have been created in this way, (e.g., CGIAR, see Agriculture, Chapter 2).
The Rockefeller Foundation also funded the study and development of psychological warfare and management strategies. These strategies were later used on a large scale to further the family’s own long-term goals.
MEDICINE
The stated purpose of the Rockefeller Foundation was “promoting the well-being of humanity throughout the world.” Medicine became an early focus for the foundation’s charity.
Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research
In 1901, John D. Senior, with assistance from Frederick Gates, founded the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (which in 1965 became Rockefeller University). John D. Junior’s advisor Simon Flexner became its first director of laboratories.
33
Flexner was the man behind the
Flexner Report
(1910), financed by Carnegie Corporation and resulting in a standardised science-based medical education.
34
Alternative medical treatments were marginalised or outlawed, and replaced by the emerging pharmaceutical industry with patentable chemical compounds, often made from oil derivative – in which the Rockefellers and some of their fellow philanthropists happened to have large financial stakes. A very profitable strategy, later to be used in other areas.
General Education Board
In 1904, Rockefeller Foundation founded the General Education Board. Again, Simon Flexner was involved as a board member. These medical institutions would become pillars of the Rockefeller empire and gave the family unprecedented influence over education, health, and medicine in the United States.
Rockefeller Foundation also had an international outlook and in 1913 founded the precursor to the WHO, International Health Division (initially focused on curing hookworm, then malaria, tuberculosis, and yellow fever).
In 1923 the accompanying International Education Board (IEB) was founded. In China RF established China Medical Board. The relationships with Chinese authorities were very good, until the revolution severed contacts with the West. When China began opening up again in the 1970s, the Rockefeller family were among the first to establish contacts with the Communist regime. This laid the foundation for China’s part in world economy after the fall of Communism in Europe.
EUGENICS
Like many of their peers in the upper classes of the early 1900s, the Rockefellers were strongly influenced by the Malthusian ideals of population control and the improvement of social and racial hygiene. The American eugenics movement had its roots in the biological determinist ideas of
Sir Francis Galton
from the 1880s.
The ultimate goal was to create a genetically improved super-human through selective breeding. This would entail appointed experts (rather than the individual) choosing suitable mating partners, in order to prevent degeneration of future generations.
35
Others, such as Margret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and friend of Abby Rockefeller’s, felt the choice should be left to the women, but instead advocated birth control and sterilisation, offered especially to those with mental health problems or physical defects.