John D. RockeFeller: A Portrait in Oils

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Cosimo, Inc., Nov 1, 2007 - Biography & Autobiography - 260 pages
What was the world's first billionaire really like? This highly entertaining work, by an acclaimed business biographer, seeks to explode the "shadowy myth" of John D. Rockefeller and reveal the "rare and astonishing personality" behind it. From his humble roots in Ohio, where he learned thrift and industry as the bookkeeper of a dockside warehouse, to the death threats this "modern Machiavelli" received during the early years of Standard Oil, to his ascendancy to the rank of "the most detested man in the country"-when churches refused his donations as tainted money-and his subsequent formation of the philanthropic Rockefeller Foundation, this is a knowingly ironic and subtly witty work of biography. JOHN K. WINKLER is also the author of W.R. Hearst: An American Phenomenon (1928) and Morgan the Magnificent, or The Life of J. Pierpont Morgan (1930).
 

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE I A STRANGE PILGRIM AND HIS SON
11
A PIOUS YOUTH GETS A FLYING START
34
A GODLY YOUNG MAN STRIKES OIL
58
A REFINER MARCHES TOWARD MONOPOLY
80
A BUSINESS GENIUS MAKES THE WORLD PAY TRIBUTE
102
THE MALEVOLENT TRUSTRAKING IN A BILLION
127
THE BENEVOLENT TRUSTLADLING OUT THE BILLION
153
JOHN D JR A CHARACTER SKETCH
180
JOHN D III THE CLANS FUTURE CHIEF TAIN AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT
209
JOHN D AT NINETY
223
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Page 15 - I cheat my boys every chance I get, I want to make 'em sharp. I trade with the boys and skin 'em and I just beat 'em every time I can. I want to make 'em sharp.
Page 13 - Dr. William A. Rockefeller, the Celebrated Cancer Specialist, Here for One Day Only. All cases of Cancer Cured unless too far gone and then they can be greatly benefited.

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