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Rockefeller family
The Rockefeller family, the renowned Cleveland family of John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) ("Senior") and his brother William Rockefeller (1841-1922), is an American industrial, banking, and political family of German American origin that made the world's largest private fortune in the oil business during the late 19th and early 20th century, primarily through the Standard Oil Company.[1] The family is also known for its long association with and financial interest in the Chase Manhattan Bank, now JP Morgan Chase.
Name and originThe name is an anglicized version of the German Rokkenfelder or Rockenfeller, meaning from Rockenfeld. The Rockefellers' origin can be explicitly traced back to the villages of Ehlscheid, Segendorf and Fahr (all suburbanised to Neuwied, Rhineland-Palatinate).[2] These are neighbored to the small settlement of Rockenfeld - part of Neuwied's quarter Feldkirchen.[3] In Germany, Rockenfeller is known as a family name. Family records in parish registers reach back to the end of the Thirty Years' War. The earliest known ancestors (direct line) are Goddard Rockenfeller (*ca. 1590) Johann Wilhem Rockenfeller (*ca. 1628,?1702) and Johannes Rockenfeller (*ca. 1634,?1684). Johann Peter (*1682), son of Johannes, moved in 1723 to Ringoes, New Jersey. Johann Thiel (*1695), grandson of Johann Wilhelm, immigrated in 1735 to Germantown, New York. William Avery Rockefeller was looking for a noble descent and a possible connection to a French Huguenot family de Roquefeullie was discussed. However, this is unlikely because the name Rockenfeld is recorded in the region long before the Huguenots fled France (1685).[2] Johann Peter's grandson, William, married a distant relative, Christina, the granddaughter of a cousin of Johann Peter. This marriage produced a son, Godfrey, who married Lucy Avery in 1806. Avery's ancestors were part of the Puritan tide from Devon, England to Massachusetts around 1630. Lucy Avery could justly claim descent from Edmund Ironside, the English king, crowned in 1016. Godfrey and Lucy eventually shifted to the remote, backwater stagecoach stop of Richford, in the western part of New York State. Their son, William Avery Rockefeller (1810–1906) was a trader in salt and timber who adopted a vagabond life as a confidence man and was known as "Big Bill", who sired two illegitimate children with his housekeeper. He married up, to Eliza Davison in 1837; her father, John Davison, was relatively rich for the time. Their second child was John Davison Rockefeller, and their third William Rockefeller.[4] The Rockefellers eventually settled near Cleveland, Ohio, where they would develop into the world-renowned family empire they are today. It was in Cleveland where John D. Sr. would amass his great fortune through Standard Oil, and where he would later be buried at Lake View Cemetery. In the generations since, however, the Rockefeller family has largely migrated to New York City, although many descendants remain in Cleveland or have since spread out across the country (e.g. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia). The family business headquarters is now located in New York City's Rockefeller Plaza. Generational philanthropyThe 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. Family leaders in both philanthropy and business have included John D. Sr., John D. Jr. ("Junior"), John D. III, Laurance Rockefeller and David Rockefeller, who is the family's current patriarch. Several family members have held high public office, including Vice President of the United States (Nelson Rockefeller), United States Senator (Jay Rockefeller), state Governor (Nelson, Jay, and Winthrop Rockefeller), and Lieutenant Governor (Winthrop Paul Rockefeller). Another noted family member was Michael Rockefeller, son of Nelson, an anthropologist who came to media attention after he was presumed killed in New Guinea in 1961. The corporate, financial and personal affairs of the family - numbering around 150 blood relatives of John D. Rockefeller - are run from the family office, Room 5600, known officially as "Rockefeller Family and Associates". It comprises three floors of the GE Building in Rockefeller Center; all private family legal matters are handled by the family-associated New York law firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. Room 5600 is also the base of the current family historian, Peter J. Johnson, who assisted with David Rockefeller's Memoirs, published in 2002. To distinguish the generations and facilitate communication, the fourth generation is generically known as "The Cousins" (24 in all, with 21 still living) and the younger family members are known as the "Fifth/Sixth" generation. Many if not all of these family members are involved in institutionalised philanthropic pursuits. Family links are solidified through the practice of ritualised family meetings - which started with the regular "brothers' meetings" held in Room 5600 or in their respective private residences, beginning in 1945. Family get-togethers are held today at the "Playhouse", in the Westchester County family estate of Pocantico, in June (the "cousins weekend") and December of each year (see Kykuit). The edifice complexOften credited with an "edifice complex", members of the family have been heavily involved in myriad real estate construction projects in the US over the span of the twentieth century. Chief among them:
In addition to this is Senior and Junior's involvement in seven major housing developments: Forest Hill Estates in Cleveland, Ohio; the City Housing Corporations efforts at Sunnyside Gardens in Queens (NY); Thomas Garden Apartments in the Bronx (NY); Paul Lawrence Dunbar Housing in Harlem; Lavoisier Apartments in Manhattan (NY); Van Tassel Apartments in Sleepy Hollow (formerly North Tarrytown), New York; and a development in Radburn, New Jersey.[5][6] A further project involved David Rockefeller in a major middle-income housing development when he was elected in 1947 as chairman of Morningside Heights Inc. in Manhattan by fourteen major institutions that were based in the area, including Columbia University. The result, in 1951, was the six-building apartment complex known as Morningside Gardens.[7] Senior's donations led to the formation of the University of Chicago in 1889, the Nobel prize-winning University where the first American Nobel Prize in science was produced in 1907, and notable for the Chicago School of Economics.[8] This was one instance of a long family and Rockefeller Foundation tradition of financially supporting Ivy League and other colleges and universities over the generations - seventy-five in total. This includes Harvard University, Dartmouth College, Princeton University, Stanford University, Yale University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Case Western Reserve University, Brown University, Columbia University, and Cornell University. This financial assistance extends overseas to institutions such as London School of Economics and University College London, among many others.[9] Senior (and Junior) also created the Rockefeller University in 1901; the General Education Board in 1902, which later (1923) evolved into the International Education Board; the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission in 1910; the Bureau of Social Hygiene in 1913 (Junior); the International Health Commission in 1913; and the China Medical Board in 1915. In the 1920s, the International Education Board granted important fellowships to pathbreakers in modern mathematics, such as Stefan Banach, Bartel Leendert van der Waerden, and André Weil, which was a formative part of the gradual shift of world mathematics to the US over this period. To help promote cooperation between physics and mathematics Rockefeller funds also supported the erection of the new Mathematical Institute at the University of Göttingen between 1926 and 1929, while the rise of probability and mathematical statistics owes much to the creation of the Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris by American philanthropy also around this time.[10] Junior also financially supported numerous other major institutions, notable among them his ongoing support for the highly influential foreign policy think tank, the New York Council on Foreign Relations, established in 1921. In 1978 the Rockefeller Foundation initiated the founding of the high-powered financial advisory council called the Group of Thirty, as well as many grants to a myriad of universities, think tanks and other institutions. Junior was also responsible for the creation and endowment of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which operates the restored historical town at Williamsburg, Virginia, one of the most extensive historic restorations ever undertaken. ConservationBeginning with Rockefeller Senior, 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 Cloisters, Acadia National Park, Forest Hill Park, the Nature Conservancy, and Grand Teton National Park, amongst many others. Rockefeller Jr, and his son Laurance (and his son Larry) were particularly prominent in this area. Most of these efforts were accomplished without public fanfare. 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".[11] International politics/finance/economicsThe family has been awarded the annual UNA-USA?s Global Leadership Award, along with other recipients over time, including Bill Clinton and Michael Bloomberg. Members of the Rockefeller family into the fourth generation (especially the prominent banker and statesman David Rockefeller, who is the present family patriarch) have been heavily involved in international politics, and have donated money, established or been involved in the following major international institutions:
The family archivesThe Rockefeller Archive Center, an independent foundation that was until 2008 a division of Rockefeller University,[12] is a vast three-story underground bunker built below the Martha Baird Rockefeller Hillcrest mansion on the family estate at Pocantico (see Kykuit). Along forty-foot-long walls of shelves on rails, patrolled by ten full-time archivists, is the entire repository of personal and official papers and correspondence of the complete family and its members, along with historical papers of its numerous foundations, as well as other non-family philanthropic institutions. These include: the Commonwealth Fund, Charles E. Culpeper Foundation, Lucille P. Markey Charitable Trust, and the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation. In total, it holds over 70 million pages of documents and contains the collections of forty-two scientific, cultural, educational and philanthropic organizations. Only the expurgated records of deceased family members are publicly available to scholars and researchers; all records pertaining to living members are closed to historians. As Nelson Rockefeller's researcher, Cary Reich, discovered however, in the case of Nelson's voluminous of papers, about only one third of these files had been processed (that is, each page vetted by the archivists) and released to researchers up to 1996. He reports that it will be many years before all the papers will be open to the public, despite Nelson having died in 1979.[13] The Center maintains that this repository of records, covering 140-plus years of the records of the family, in addition to non-Rockefeller philanthropic collections, gives unique insights into United States and world issues and social developments in both the 19th and 20th centuries. Records in the collection are only available up until the early 1960s, generally 1961. Major subjects in the collection include:
Family wealthThe combined wealth of the family – its total assets and investments plus the individual wealth of its members – has never been known with any precision. In 1992, family members estimated it to be between US$5 billion to $10 billion. The records of the family archives relating to both the family and individual members' net worth is closed to researchers. Independent researchers have valued the assets of the Rockefeller family much higher, some approaching amounts as high as $11 trillion.[15] From the outset, and even today, the family wealth has been under the complete control of the male members of the dynasty, through the family office. Despite strong-willed wives who had influence over their husbands' decisions – such as the pivotal female figure Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, wife of Junior – in all cases they received allowances only and were never given even partial responsibility for the family fortune.[16] Much of the wealth has been locked up in the notable family trust of 1934 (which holds the bulk of the fortune and matures on the death of the fourth generation), 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. It has consisted over time of high-profile individuals, which have included Paul Volcker, William G. Bowen (former president of Princeton University) and John C. Whitehead (retired co-chairman of Goldman Sachs). Management of this fortune today also rests with professional money managers who oversee the principal holding company, Rockefeller Financial Services, which controls all the family's investments, now that Rockefeller Center is no longer owned by the family. The present chairman is David Rockefeller, Jr. In 1992, it had five main arms:
Family residencesOver 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.[18] Not including all mansions owned by the five brothers, some of the more prominent of these are:
CriticismCertain prominent members of the Rockefeller family have long been accused of poor ethical practices to further their prosperity.[19][20][21][22] In his memoirs, dated 2002, David Rockefeller is quoted, "For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it" LegacyA trademark of the dynasty over its 140-plus years has been the remarkable unity it has maintained, despite major divisions that developed in the late 1970s, and unlike other wealthy families such as the DuPonts and the Mellons. A primary reason has been the lifelong efforts of "Junior" to not only cleanse the name from the opprobrium stemming from the ruthless practices of Standard Oil, but his tireless efforts to forge family unity even as he allowed his five sons to operate independently. This was partly achieved by regular brothers and family meetings, but it was also because of the high value placed on family unity by first Nelson and John 3rd, and later especially with David.[23] As for achievements, in 1972, on the 100th anniversary of the founding of Andrew Carnegie's philanthropy, the Carnegie Corporation, which has had a long association with the family and its institutions, released a public statement on the influence of the family on not just philanthropy but encompassing a much wider field. Summing up a publicly poorly grasped but predominant view amongst the international philanthropic world, one sentence of this statement read: "The contributions of the Rockefeller family are staggering in their extraordinary range and in the scope of their contribution to humankind."[24] As far as wealth is concerned, John D. Rockefeller denied ever being worth $10,000,000,000. However, on September 29, 1916 (notably years after the break-up of his Standard Oil empire by the Supreme Court in 1911), he officially passed that mark and became the richest man who has ever lived, surpassing by far the fortune of the second wealthiest, Andrew Carnegie. He gave away more than half that amount over his lifetime, US$540 million (in dollar terms of that time), and became the greatest lay benefactor of medicine in history.[25] His son, "Junior" also gave away over $537 million over his lifetime, bringing the total philanthropy of just two generations of the family to over $1 billion from 1860 to 1960.[26] Added to this, the New York Times declared in a report in November, 2006 that David Rockefeller's total charitable benefactions amount to about $900 million over his lifetime.[27] The combined personal and social connections of the various family members are vast, both in America and throughout the world, including the most powerful politicians, royalty, public figures, and chief businessmen. Notable figures through Standard Oil alone have included Henry Flagler and Henry H. Rogers. Contemporary figures include Henry Kissinger, Nelson Mandela, Richard Parsons (Chairman and CEO of Time Warner), C. Fred Bergsten, Peter G. Peterson (Senior Chairman of the Blackstone Group), and Paul Volcker. The Rockefeller name is imprinted on numerous places throughout the United States, most notably in New York City, but also in Cleveland, where the family originates:
John D Junior, through his son Nelson, purchased and then donated the land upon which sits the UN headquarters, in New York, in 1946. Earlier, in the 1920s, he had also donated a substantial amount towards the restoration and rehabilitation of major buildings in France after World War I, such as the Rheims Cathedral, the Fontainebleau Palace and the Palace of Versailles, for which he was later (1936) awarded France's highest decoration, the Grand Croix of the Legion d'Honneur (subsequently also awarded decades later to his son, David Rockefeller). He also funded the notable excavations at Luxor in Egypt, as well as establishing a Classical Studies School in Athens. In addition, he provided the funding for the construction of the Palestine Archaeological Museum in East Jerusalem - the Rockefeller Museum.[29] For all of the above reasons, the family and its far reaching philanthropy, and its oil, real estate, banking, and international institutions is still considered today to be America's greatest family. It is also a benchmark for extreme wealth ("as rich as Rockefeller"), as "Senior" is still regarded as the wealthiest man who has ever lived, worth over $300 billion in today's figures, easily surpassing Bill Gates, in terms adjusted by inflation indexing.[30] Members of the Rockefeller familyAncestors
Descendants of John Davison RockefellerTo the sixth-generation, with 21 still living in the fourth (the Cousins). The total number of blood relative descendants as of 2006 is about 150.
Descendants of William RockefellerAn article in the New York Times in 1937 stated that William Rockefeller had, at that time, exactly 28 great-grandchildren.
Spouses
Select bibliography
See also
NotesReferences
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