Rockefeller, John Davison (1839-1937), American industrialist. Rockefeller was born in Richford, New York, on July 8, 1839, and educated in the public schools of Cleveland, Ohio. He became a bookkeeper in Cleveland at the age of 16. In 1862 he went into business with entrepreneur Henry Flagler and with Samuel Andrews, the inventor of an inexpensive process for the refinement of crude petroleum. In 1870 their firm, Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler, changed its name to the Standard Oil Company, often referred …showed first 75 words of 435 total…

…showed last 75 words of 435 total…In 1892 it was renamed Standard Oil Company (New Jersey), often referred to as Jersey Standard. Jersey Standard became the sole holding company for all of Standard Oil in 1899. However, in 1911 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Standard Oil had continued to act as a monopoly. The Court’s antitrust ruling forced all of the Standard Oil companies to become independent businesses. That year Rockefeller, at age 72, retired as president of Standard Oil