Episode Details

John D. Rockefeller started as a bookkeeper making fifty cents a day and built Standard Oil into a monopoly so complete that the federal government had to invent antitrust law to break it apart. He became the richest American who ever lived — and then spent the second half of his life giving the money away, funding universities, medical research, and public health campaigns that saved millions of lives.

This episode traces Rockefeller from his con-man father and devout Baptist mother through the ruthless construction of the Standard Oil monopoly, the Supreme Court breakup, and the philanthropic empire that reshaped American education and medicine.

• Rockefeller's frugal childhood and the bookkeeping discipline that built his business empire
• The ruthless tactics — secret rail rebates, predatory pricing — that created the Standard Oil monopoly
• The antitrust case and the Supreme Court decision that broke Standard Oil into thirty-four companies
• The Rockefeller Foundation and the philanthropy that funded modern medicine and higher education