John D Rockefeller - Eli

John Davison Rockefeller was born on July 8, 1839, in Richford, New York. And In 1864, Rockefeller married Laura Celestia. Laura Celestia was an Ohio native and had a very successful father. Her father was active in helping the underground railroad and was an abolitionist. together Rockefeller and Celestia went on to have five children, 4 of them girls and one boy. however one of the girls, Alice Rockefeller died when she was only 13 months old. Later, In 1865 Rockefeller took out a loan to buy out his partner's oil refineries. He quickly formed more partners and expanded his oil business. he soon made the standard oil company of Ohio along with his younger brother and other young men. John Rockefeller became the president and biggest shareholder of the company. He began to make a monopoly in the Oil industry by buying out his competitors. he started selling his oil globally and eventually made up 90 percent of the nation's oil. 

the gilded age is an era where we see a great divide between poverty and success that helps keep the rich rich rich and the poor poor. in the past few years, we have seen this trend start to occur again. especially with many new super mansions, cars, and million-dollar jewelry coming out every year that can only be bought by the richest of the rich. many of the leaders in the gilded age were able to become so wealthy by riding new trends in our society, and I'm not talking about fidget spinners, I'm talking about trends that changed the world, like technology, the internet, and phones in the modern era. a good example of this is John D. Rockefeller who I talked about earlier, he was able to use the new discovery of oil to gain immense wealth. The biggest problem with this was not only the economic divide but also the way that these billionaires were spending their money, instead of helping the community and investing in smaller businesses they would try to further gain money.