John D Rockefeller

 

1839-1937
John D Rockefeller was a great entrepreneur in the mid to late 1800s in the United States. Rockefeller started in the business of oil in the early 1860s and opened his first refinery in 1863. Not but a decade later he started an oil company called the Standard Oil Company. By 1880 Standard Oil had control of almost all of the nations oil and refineries in one great monopoly. Under the rule of Rockefeller the company made thousands of miles of pipelines and bought oil train cars to ship his product across the country. At this point he had control over almost the entire nation's oil.
In 1882 Rockefeller organized the Standard Oil Trust, which was a business trust that would serve as a business model for other monopolies; of course, he was appointed to be the head of the organization. In 1895 at the age of 56, he finally retired from Standard Oil. After his retirement he gave over 530 million dollars to various causes including the college he made called the Rockefeller University. Because of his great company the US was able to gather an immeasurable amount of oil and money. Without his business the country would not have had a lot of jobs he made available when he opened all of his factories, refineries and oil wells.
Rockefeller had five children (one of which died in infancy). He died on May 23, 1937; however, his legacy as one of the nations leading business men, continues on today.

-Cordel Bever 

Source: http://www.biography.com/people/john-d-rockefeller-20710159?page=1
            http://www.biography.com/people/john-d-rockefeller-20710159?page=2
Click HERE to see the full history of the Rockefellers 

 

The Builders

One of the many men who controlled the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad was Leland Stanford. He was a Governor that only ran one term because of the poor choices he made wile building the railroad and was a very self centered person. This man, even though he was horrible, built a large potion of the railroad.

On January 8, 1863 he first announced that he was going to start construction of the Central Pacific Railroad; on that day everyone cheered for all the great things that he promised. Their opinions quickly changed after some of his decisions. His first decision in may of that year was to appoint his business partner E. B. Crocker to the to California's supreme court. it was not really a bad thing but it made him look bad and he lost most of his supporters.

In August of 1868 the railroad had pushed out of the mountains and made a huge mistake by not keeping a delegate in the railroad camp of Brigham Young. So he then had to hire new workers. He had recently reached an agreement with Mormon laborers to work on the railroad. Some pros of Stanford's business on the railroad was that he built a good portion of it and helped expand the rail system all over the Pacific. Also because he was the boss he was able to make some of his own decisions. Some cons where that he made a fair amount of bad decisions that both hurt him and the railroad as a whole.
By Cordel Bever
Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography/tcrr-stanford         

Blog Post

Impacts of the Transcontinental Rail Road  

Anne-Marie Hammarstrom

http://historyissuperduperfunfun.blogspot.com/2013/10/impacts-of-transcontinental-rail-road.html

Dealing With Workers
Cordel Bever
http://vicksburgus.blogspot.com/2013/10/dealing-with-workers.html 

The Builders
Cordel Bever
 http://vicksburgus.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-builders.html

The Workers
Tj Cecil
http://alliemorgan99.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-workers-early-america-as-industrial.html

Life in Camp 
Allie Morgan
http://alliemorgan99.blogspot.com/2013/10/life-in-camp.html

Dealing With Workers

The working conditions where very bad on the West coast. Even in the early summer there where snow drifts up to 12 feet high, and the only way to build the railroad was to shovel a path. All the workers stayed at camps that where set up around the railroad, but the camps did not move with the progression so every day they had to walk an amount of miles to get back to camp. The workers on the railroad mostly consisted of Chinese and Irish immigrants.

The workers where working in very dangerous conditions for pay as low as 35 dollars a month. On one area of the Pacific railroad the Chinese tried to get their employers to raise their pay from 35 dollars to 45 and shorten their work hours to 10; however, they did not want to do that so they cut off all supplies to their camp in the mountains and did not pay them as a punishment. The workers finally went back to work so they would get food and pay but it did not settle the danger of working on the railroad. The workers will try to make the railroad a safe place to work but the employers will not.

The employers will only change the working conditions if the workers demand it and stop working to prove their point. As for dealing with the workers it is hard because the employers have to constantly make new payment plans for the workers and try to get a plan that both the workers and the employers agree with.
By Cordel Bever
Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/tcrr-strike