Lucy Avery Rockefeller, the doughty grandmother of John D. Rockefeller. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
John D. Rockefeller’s humble birthplace in Richford, New York. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
The five children of William and Eliza Rockefeller. Seated, from left: John, twenty, Mary Ann, sixteen, and William, eighteen. Standing: Lucy, twenty-one, and Frank, fourteen. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Lucy Henry Spelman, Rockefeller’s mother-in-law, and Harvey Buel Spelman, his father-in-law. The Spelmans were staunch temperance advocates and abolitionists. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
The inseparable Spelman sisters: Lucy, also known as “Lute” (left), and Laura. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
A top-hatted “Colonel” Edwin Drake stands before the landmark well he drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859. (Courtesy of the Drake Well Museum)
After the Civil War, Rockefeller & Andrews occupied second-floor offices in the Sexton Block in Cleveland. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
The storied oil boomtown of Pithole, which sprang up miraculously in 1865 and vanished within a decade. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
The stately Rockefeller home at 424 Euclid Avenue in Cleveland. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Rockefeller’s rambling retreat at Forest Hill, which was briefly run by the family as a hotel. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
A studio portrait of a polished John D. Rockefeller in 1884. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
A family picnic at Forest Hill, circa 1880. Rockefeller stands at far left. Daughters Bessie, left, and Edith, right, sit directly behind the table, while Alta lounges impishly below. Cettie sits at far left and Grandmother Spelman at far right.(Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Rockefeller dines on sardines al fresco during an 1899 camping trip in the American West. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Rockefeller sits erect on the steps of brother William’s estate, Rockwood Hall, flanked to the rear by daughter Alta, left, and William’s daughter Emma; in the foreground, from left, sit William’s children Percy and Ethel and John D. Rockefeller, Jr.(Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
The first graduating class of Spelman Seminary, 1887, which was founded to educate freed women slaves and their daughters. (Courtesy of the Spelman College Archives)
John D. Rockefeller, Jr., sits astride his first pony, which was hand-picked by his father. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
John D. Rockefeller, Jr., circa 1880, with his sole childhood friend, Harry Moore, son of the Forest Hill housekeeper. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Alta Rockefeller on the day of her wedding to Ezra Parmalee Prentice. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Harold Fowler McCormick, dreamer and businessman. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Edith Rockefeller McCormick holds aloft John Rockefeller McCormick, whose early death from scarlet fever led to the founding of an institute for infectious diseases in Chicago. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Senior’s massive house at 4 West Fifty-fourth Street, foreground, and Junior’s still grander adjoining house at 10 West Fifty-fourth, on the site now occupied by the Museum of Modern Art. Their carriage house is visible in the foreground. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
For their bedroom at 4 West Fifty-fourth Street, John and Cettie Rockefeller retained the richly exotic furnishings of their predecessor, Arabella Worsham, the mistress of Collis P. Huntington. Such luxury was not their usual style. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Senator Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island, whom Lincoln Steffens dubbed “the political boss of the United States.” (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
The Aldrich sisters in 1910. From left: Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Elsie Aldrich, and Lucy Aldrich. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
The Aldrich family. From left: Abby, Lucy, Senator Aldrich, Winthrop (?), and Mrs. Aldrich. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
William Rockefeller. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Frank Rockefeller. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Frederick T. Gates in his later years. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
The only existing photo that shows John D. with his father, William Avery Rockefeller, who sits rather awkwardly to the left, while Edith holds John Rockefeller McCormick on her lap, circa 1897. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
The aging Eliza Davison Rockefeller bore a comical resemblance to her famous son in his later years. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
The tombstone of William Avery Rockefeller— a.k.a. Dr. William Levingston—in Freeport, Illinois. (Courtesy of Heather Brownfield)
The cover of McClure’s Magazine containing the malevolent “character sketch” by Ida Tarbell that so deeply wounded Rockefeller. (Courtesy of the Drake Well Museum)
Rockefeller en route to testify in an antitrust case against Standard Oil, November 18, 1908. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Rockefeller goes to court, escorted by John G. Milburn, a Standard Oil lawyer in the federal antitrust suit. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
John D. Archbold, Rockefeller’s combative protégé and successor. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Rockefeller (center) pauses at Forest Hill with some favorite golf cronies. From left: Dr. Hamilton F. Biggar, Elias M. Johnson, Capt. Levi T. Scofield, and Dr. Charles A. Eaton. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
An eerily hairless Rockefeller holds an unidentified grandchild, September 23, 1904. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
The first version of Kykuit, completed in 1908 and found wanting by John and Cettie. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
The more compact and elegant second version of Kykuit, finished in 1913 and today open to the public. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
An aerial view of John D.’s golf hideaway in Lakewood, New Jersey. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Rockefeller, nattily attired, strolls among the sheep that browsed outside his Golf House residence in Lakewood. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Chief lieutenants of the Rockefeller philanthropies: (top, left) Dr. Simon Flexner, director of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research; (top, right) Wickliffe Rose, head of the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission; (bottom, left) Starr J. Murphy, legal adviser to the Rockefeller Family Office; and (bottom, right) Wallace Buttrick, secretary of the General Education Board. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Abby Aldrich and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., circa 1916. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
The Rockefellers could be playful on occasion. Abby Aldrich and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., costumed for a fancy dress ball at Louis Tiffany’s home, probably around 1910. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
John D. Rockefeller, Jr., leaves hearings on the Ludlow Massacre, held at New York’s City Hall in January 1915. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Junior takes the stand to testify about Ludlow. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
A photographer captured an impromptu encounter between Junior and labor organizer Mother Jones—a vocal critic of Colorado Fuel and Iron—at the January 27, 1915, hearings. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Publicist Ivy Lee worked to rehabilitate the tarnished Rockefeller name after the Ludlow disaster. (Courtesy of the Princeton University Library)
Rockefeller sits wedged between two ladies in the backseat of his touring car. His hands often strayed during the afternoon drives. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Jo Davidson sculpts an equally stony-faced Rockefeller in 1924. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Abby Aldrich and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., with their children in Seal Harbor, Maine, 1921. From left to right: Laurance, Babs, John 3rd, David, Winthrop, and Nelson. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Rockefeller with Bessie’s grandchildren, Elizabeth and John de Cuevas, Ormond Beach, 1933. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Rockefeller’s winter home in Ormond Beach, Florida, called The Casements. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Rockefeller trades one-liners with Will Rogers in Ormond Beach, February 1927. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Rockefeller and daughter Alta at Ormond Beach, 1931. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Rockefeller, in trademark goggles, smacks a ball down the fairway at Ormond Beach, December 24, 1932. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Abby and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., tour the Grand Tetons in October 1931. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Junior bashfully greets the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall, December 30, 1937. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
Junior and Senior pose with Nelson and his first son, Rod-man. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
The sons of Abby and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., in their Eton collars. Left to right: David, Winthrop, Laurance, Nelson, and John 3rd. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
A formal family dinner party at 740 Park Avenue in Manhattan, March 1949. Standing, from left to right: Irving H. Pardee, David, Nelson, Winthrop, and Laurance Rockefeller. Seated: John 3rd and John D. Rockefeller, Jr.(Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
The wives at the same dinner party. From left to right: Abby (Babs) Rockefeller Pardee, Peggy McGrath Rockefeller, Mary “Tod” Rockefeller, Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller, Barbara “Bobo” Sears Rockefeller, and Mary French Rockefeller.(Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)
A photo taken on December 17, 1931, that shows the seamed, leathery face of John D. Rockefeller in his final decade. (Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center)