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Founders Notes: Titan Rockefeller

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Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. Ron Chernow As I pored over this seventeen-hundred-page verbatim transcript, I was astonished: Rockefeller, stereotyped as taciturn and empty, turned out to be analytic, articulate, even fiery; he was also quite funny, with a dry midwestern wit. This wasn't someone I had encountered in any biography. (Page 1) Yet even with such massive documentation, I had the frustrating sense that I was confronting a sphinx. Rockefeller trained himself to reveal as little as possible, even in private letters, which he wrote as if they might someday fall into the hands of a prosecuting attorney. (Page 1) The story of John D. Rockefeller transports us back to a time when industrial capitalism was raw and new in America, and the rules of the game were unwritten. More than anyone else, Rockefeller incarnated the capitalist revolution that followed the Civil War and transformed American life. He embodied all its virtues of thrift, self-reliance, hard work, and unflagging enterprise. (Page 1) I rejoice that we are charitable and sweet-spirited to these jealous, small men who made it the business of their lives to try to pull us down because their vision did n

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. Ron Chernow As I pored over this seventeen-hundred-page verbatim transcript, I was astonished: Rockefeller, stereotyped as taciturn and empty, turned out to be analytic, articulate, even fiery; he was also quite funny, with a dry midwestern wit. This wasn't someone I had encountered in any biography. (Page 1) Yet even with such massive documentation, I had the frustrating sense that I was confronting a sphinx. Rockefeller trained himself to reveal as little as possible, even in private letters, which he wrote as if they might someday fall into…

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