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Portrait: The Rockefeller family

Friday, 27 May 2016 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: Editorial / Redaktion
Category/Kategorie: Portrait Reading Time:  7 minutes

🔊 Listen to this Post The Rockefeller family is an American industrial, political, and banking family that made one of the world’s largest fortunes in the oil business during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with John D. Rockefeller and his brother William Rockefeller primarily through Standard Oil. Their economic rise coincides with the so-called Gilded Age. The family is also known for its long association with and control of Chase Manhattan Bank. They are considered to be one of the most powerful families, if not the most powerful family, in the history of the United States. The first documented ancestor of the Rockefeller’s is Goddard Rockenfeller from Neuwied, Germany. His grandson Johann Peter and grandgrandson Johann Thiel migrated with their families from New Jersey and New York City, where they called themselves Rockefeller.

The Rockefeller name is imprinted in numerous places throughout the United States, most notably in New York City, but also in Cleveland. The combined wealth of the family – their total assets and investments plus the individual wealth of its members – has never been known with any precision. The records of the family archives relating to both the family and individual members’ net worth are closed to researchers. Over the generations the family members have resided in some notable historic homes. A total of 81 Rockefeller homes are on the National Register of Historic Places. The members of the Rockefeller family are noted for their philanthropy; a Rockefeller Archive Center study in 2004 documents an incomplete list of 72 major institutions that the family has created and/or endowed up to the present day. Historically, the major focus of their benefactions have been in the educational, health and conservation areas. Much of the wealth has been locked up in the notable family trust of 1934, and the trust of 1952, both administered by the Chase Manhattan Bank. These trusts have consisted of shares in the successor companies to Standard Oil and other diversified investments, as well as the family’s considerable real estate holdings. They are administered by a powerful trust committee that oversees the fortune. Donations by the family led to the formation of the University of Chicago in 1889, where the first American Nobel Prize in Science was produced in 1907; the Central Philippine University in the Philippines (The first Baptist university and second American university in Asia); and notable for the Chicago School of Economics. This was one instance of a long family and Rockefeller Foundation tradition of financially supporting Ivy League and other major colleges and universities over the generations – seventy-five in total. Members of the Rockefeller family into the fourth generation (especially the prominent banker and philanthropist David Rockefeller, who is the present family patriarch) have been heavily involved in international politics, and have donated money to, established or been involved in major international institutions.

Beginning with John Sr., the family has been a major force in land conservation. Over the generations, it has created more than 20 national parks and open spaces, including the The Cloisters, Acadia National Park, Forest Hill Park, the Nature Conservancy, the Rockefeller Forest in California’s Humboldt Redwoods State Park (the largest stand of old-growth redwoods), and Grand Teton National Park, among many others. The family was honored for its conservation efforts in November 2005, by the National Audubon Society, one of America’s largest and oldest conservation organizations, at which over 30 family members attended. At the event, the society’s president, John Flicker, notably stated: “Cumulatively, no other family in America has made the contribution to conservation that the Rockefeller family has made”.

The family was heavily involved in numerous real estate construction projects in the U.S. during the 20th century. Chief among them:

• Rockefeller Center, Midtown Manhattan, Manhattan, New York City, New York
• International House of New York, Morningside Heights, Upper Manhattan, Manhattan, New York City, New York
• Colonial Williamsburg, Williamsburg, Virginia
• Museum of Modern Art, Midtown Manhattan, Manhattan, New York City, New York
• Riverside Church, Morningside Heights, Upper Manhattan, Manhattan, New York City, New York
• The Cloisters, Washington Heights, Upper Manhattan, Manhattan, New York City, New York
• The Interchurch Center, Morningside Heights, Upper West Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York
• Asia Society (Asia House), Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York
• One Chase Manhattan Plaza, Financial District, Lower Manhattan, Manhattan, New York City, New York
• Empire State Plaza, Albany, New York
• Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Square, Upper West Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York
• World Trade Center Twin Towers, Lower Manhattan, Manhattan, New York City, New York
• Embarcadero Center, Financial District, San Francisco, California
• Council of the Americas / Americas Society building, Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York
• Central Philippine University, Iloilo City, Philippines
• In addition to this there were seven major housing developments:
• Forest Hill Estates, Cleveland, Ohio
• Sunnyside Gardens, Queens, New York City, New York
• Thomas Garden Apartments, The Bronx, New York City, New York
• Paul Laurence Dunbar Housing, Harlem, New York City, New York
• Lavoisier Apartments, Manhattan, New York City, New York
• Van Tassel Apartments, Sleepy Hollow, New York
• Morningside Gardens, Manhattan, New York City, New York

Read more on Rockefeller & Co, The Rockefeller Group, The Rockefeller Foundation and Wikipedia Rockefeller Family (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.

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