Rockefeller family

The Rockefeller family originated in Rhineland in Germany and can be traced to the town Neuwied in the early 17th century. The American family branch is descended from Johann Peter Rockefeller, who migrated from Rhineland to Philadelphia around 1723. In America he became a plantation owner and landholder in Somerville, and Amwell, New Jersey.[5][6][7]

One of the first members of the Rockefeller family in New York was businessman William Rockefeller Sr., who was born to a Protestant family in Granger, New York. He had six children with his first wife Eliza Davison, the daughter of a Scotch-Irish farmer,[4] the most prominent of which were oil tycoons John D. Rockefeller and William Rockefeller Jr., the co-founders of Standard Oil. John D. Rockefeller (known as "Senior", as opposed to his son John D. Rockefeller Jr., known as "Junior") was a devout Northern Baptist, and he supported many church-based institutions.[8][9][10]

The Rockefeller brothers

John Davison Rockefeller Sr.

William Avery Rockefeller Jr.

The combined wealth of the family—their total assets and investments plus the individual wealth of its members—has never been known with any precision. The records of the family archives relating to both the family and individual members' net worth are closed to researchers.[11]

From the outset the family's wealth has been under the complete control of the male members of the dynasty, through the family office. Despite strong-willed wives who had influence over their husbands' decisions—such as the pivotal female figure Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, wife of John D. Rockefeller Jr.—in all cases they received allowances only and were never given even partial responsibility for the family fortune.[12]

Much of the wealth has been locked up in the notable family trust of 1934 (which holds the bulk of the fortune and matures on the death of the fourth generation) and the trust of 1952, both administered by Chase Bank, the corporate successor to Chase Manhattan Bank. These trusts have consisted of shares in the successor companies to Standard Oil and other diversified investments, as well as the family's considerable real estate holdings. They are administered by a trust committee that oversees the fortune.

Management of this fortune today also rests with professional money managers who oversee the principal holding company, Rockefeller Financial Services, which controls all the family's investments, now that Rockefeller Center is no longer owned by the family. The present chairman is David Rockefeller Jr.

In 1992, it had five main arms:

• Rockefeller & Co. (Money management: Universities have invested some of their endowments in this company);
• Venrock Associates (Venture Capital: an early investment in Apple Computer was one of many it made in Silicon Valley entrepreneurial start-ups);
• Rockefeller Trust Company (Manages hundreds of family trusts);
• Rockefeller Insurance Company (Manages liability insurance for family members);
• Acadia Risk Management (Insurance Broker: Contracts out policies for the family's vast art collections, real estate and private planes.)[13]

30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City, NY, U.S.

One Chase Manhattan Plaza

Rockefeller Center at night, December 1934

Riverside Church

The Cloisters, Upper Manhattan

The family was heavily involved in numerous real estate construction projects in the U.S. during the 20th century.[14] Chief among them:

• Rockefeller Center, a multi-building complex built at the start of the Depression in Midtown Manhattan, financed solely by the family
• International House of New York, New York City, 1924 (John Jr.) {Involvement: John III, Abby Aldrich, David & Peggy, David Jr., Abby O'Neill}
• Wren Building, College of William and Mary, Virginia, from 1927 (Renovation funded by Junior)
• Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, from 1927 onwards (Junior), Abby Aldrich, John III and Winthrop, historical restoration
• Museum of Modern Art, New York City, from 1929 (Abby Aldrich, John Jr., Blanchette, Nelson, David, David Jr., Sharon Percy Rockefeller)
• Riverside Church, New York City, 1930 (John Jr.)
• The Cloisters, New York City, from 1934 (John Jr.)
• The Interchurch Center, New York City, 1948 (John Jr.)
• Asia Society (Asia House), New York City, 1956 (John III)
• One Chase Manhattan Plaza, New York City, 1961 (David)
• Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza, Albany, New York, 1962 (Nelson)
• Lincoln Center, New York City, 1962 (John III)
• World Trade Center Twin Towers, New York City, 1973–2001 (David and Nelson)
• Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, 1974 (David)
• Council of the Americas/Americas Society, New York City, 1985 (David)
• In addition to this is Senior and Junior's involvement in seven major housing developments:
  • Forest Hill Estates, Cleveland, Ohio
  • City Housing Corporation's efforts, Sunnyside Gardens, Queens, New York City
  • Thomas Garden Apartments, The Bronx, New York City
  • Paul Laurence Dunbar Housing, Harlem, New York City
  • Lavoisier Apartments, Manhattan, New York City
  • Van Tassel Apartments, Sleepy Hollow, New York (formerly North Tarrytown)
  • A development in Radburn, New Jersey[15][16]
  • A further project involved David Rockefeller in a major middle-income housing development when he was elected in 1947 as chairman of Morningside Heights, Inc., in Manhattan by fourteen major institutions that were based in the area, including Columbia University. The result, in 1951, was the six-building apartment complex known as Morningside Gardens.[17]
• Senior's donations led to the formation of the University of Chicago in 1889; the Central Philippine University in the Philippines (The first Baptist university and second American university in Asia); and notable for the Chicago School of Economics.[18] This was one instance of a long family and Rockefeller Foundation tradition of financially supporting Ivy League and other major colleges and universities over the generations—seventy-five in total. These include:
  • Harvard University
  • Dartmouth College
  • Princeton University
  • University of California, Berkeley
  • Stanford University
  • Yale University
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Brown University
  • Tufts University
  • Columbia University
  • Cornell University
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • Case Western Reserve University
  • Institutions overseas such as London School of Economics and University College London, among many others.[19]
• Senior (and Junior) also created
  • Rockefeller University in 1901
  • General Education Board in 1902, which later (1923) evolved into the International Education Board
  • Rockefeller Sanitary Commission in 1910
  • Bureau of Social Hygiene in 1913 (Junior)
  • International Health Division in 1913
  • China Medical Board in 1915.
  • Rockefeller Museum, Israel, 1925–30
  • In the 1920s, the International Education Board granted important fellowships to pathbreakers in modern mathematics, such as Stefan Banach, Bartel Leendert van der Waerden, and André Weil, which was a formative part of the gradual shift of world mathematics to the US over this period.
  • To help promote cooperation between physics and mathematics Rockefeller funds also supported the erection of the new Mathematical Institute at the University of Göttingen between 1926 and 1929
  • The rise of probability and mathematical statistics owes much to the creation of the Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris, partly by the Rockefellers' finances, also around this time.[20]
  • John D Jr. established International House at Berkeley.
  • Junior was responsible for the creation and endowment of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which operates the restored historical town at Williamsburg, Virginia, one of the most extensive historic restorations ever undertaken.

Over the generations, the family members have resided in some notable historic homes. A total of 81 Rockefeller residences are on the National Register of Historic Places.[21] Not including all homes owned by the five brothers, some of the more prominent of these residences are:

• One Beekman Place - The residence of Laurance in New York City.
• 10 West 54th Street - A nine-story single family home, the former residence of Junior before he shifted to 740 Park Avenue, and the largest residence in New York City at the time, it was the home for the five young brothers; it was later given by Junior to the Museum of Modern Art.
• 740 Park Avenue - Junior and Abby's famed 40-room triplex apartment in the luxury New York City apartment building, which was later sold for a record price.
• Bassett Hall - The house at Colonial Williamsburg bought by Junior in 1927 and renovated by 1936, it was the favorite residence of both Junior and Abby and is now a house museum at the family-restored Colonial Revival town.
• The Casements - A three-story house at Ormond Beach in Florida, where Senior spent his last winters, from 1919 until his death.
• The Eyrie - A sprawling 100-room summer holiday home on Mount Desert Island in Maine, demolished by family members in 1962.
• Forest Hill - The family's country estate and summer home in Cleveland, Ohio, for four decades; built and occupied by Senior, it burned down in 1917.
• Golf House at Lakewood, New Jersey - The former three-story clubhouse for the elite Ocean County Hunt and Country Club, which Senior bought in 1902 to play golf on its golf course.
• Kykuit, also known as the John D. Rockefeller Estate - The landmark six-story, 40-room home on the vast Westchester County family estate, home to four generations of the family.
• The JY Ranch - The landmark ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the holiday resort home built by Junior and later owned by Laurance, which was used by all members of the family and had many prominent visitors, including presidents, until Laurance donated it to the federal government in 2001.
• Rockwood Hall - The former home of William Rockefeller Jr. (demolished in the 1940s).

• 
  Kykuit, the landmark family home in Sleepy Hollow, New York
• 
  The Casements, the family's former winter residence in Florida

The Population Council, founded by the family in 1952.

Prominent banker and philanthropist David Rockefeller Sr. was the family patriarch until his death in 2017. In 1960, when his brother Nelson Rockefeller was governor of New York, David Sr. successfully pressed for a repeal of a New York state law that restricted Chase Manhattan Bank from operating outside the city. David Sr. was twice offered the post of Treasury secretary by President Richard M. Nixon, but declined on both occasions. In 1979, he used his high-level contacts to bring Mohammad Reza Shah of Iran, who had been overthrown in the Iranian Revolution and was in poor health, for medical treatment in the United States. In 1998, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton for his work on International Executive Service Corps.[22]

A trademark of the dynasty over its 140-plus years has been the remarkable unity it has maintained, despite major divisions that developed in the late 1970s, and unlike other wealthy families such as the Du Ponts and the Mellons. A primary reason has been the lifelong efforts of "Junior" to not only cleanse the name from the opprobrium stemming from the ruthless practices of Standard Oil, but his tireless efforts to forge family unity even as he allowed his five sons to operate independently. This was partly achieved by regular brothers and family meetings, but it was also because of the high value placed on family unity by first Nelson and John III, and later especially with David.[23]

Regarding achievements, in 1972, on the 100th anniversary of the founding of Andrew Carnegie's philanthropy, the Carnegie Corporation, which has had a long association with the family and its institutions, released a public statement on the influence of the family on not just philanthropy but encompassing a much wider field. Summing up a predominant view among the international philanthropic world, albeit one poorly grasped by the public, one sentence of this statement read: "The contributions of the Rockefeller family are staggering in their extraordinary range and in the scope of their contribution to humankind."[24]

John D. Rockefeller gave away US$540 million over his lifetime (in dollar terms of that time), and became the greatest lay benefactor of medicine in history.[25] His son, Junior, also gave away over $537 million over his lifetime, bringing the total philanthropy of just two generations of the family to over $1 billion from 1860 to 1960.[26] Added to this, the New York Times declared in a report in November 2006 that David Rockefeller's total charitable benefactions amount to about $900 million over his lifetime.[27]

The combined personal and social connections of the various family members are vast, both in the United States and throughout the world, including the most powerful politicians, royalty, public figures, and chief businessmen. Notable figures through Standard Oil alone have included Henry Flagler and Henry H. Rogers. Contemporary figures include Henry Kissinger, Richard Parsons (Chairman and CEO of Time Warner), C. Fred Bergsten, Peter G. Peterson (Senior Chairman of the Blackstone Group), and Paul Volcker.

In 1991, the family was presented with the Honor Award from the National Building Museum for four generations worth of preserving and creating some of the U.S.'s most important buildings and places. David accepted the award on the family's behalf.[28] The ceremony coincided with an exhibition on the family's contributions to the built environment, including John Sr.'s preservation efforts for the Hudson River Palisades, the restoration of Williamsburg, Virginia, construction of Rockefeller Center, and Governor Nelson's efforts to construct low- and middle-income housing in New York state.[29]

The Rockefeller name is imprinted in numerous places throughout the United States, most notably in New York City, but also in Cleveland, where the family originates:

• Rockefeller Center - A landmark 19-building 22-acre (89,000 m²) complex in the center of Manhattan established by Junior: Older section constructed from 1930–1939; Newer section constructed during the 1960s-1970s;
• Rockefeller University - Renamed in 1965, this is the distinguished Nobel prize-winning graduate/postgraduate medical school (formerly the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, established by Senior in 1901);
• Rockefeller Foundation - Founded in 1913, this is the famous philanthropic organization set up by Senior and Junior;
• Rockefeller Brothers Fund - Founded in 1940 by the third-generation's five sons and one daughter of Junior;
• Rockefeller Family Fund - Founded in 1967 by members of the family's fourth-generation;
• Rockefeller Group - A private family-run real estate development company based in New York that originally owned, constructed and managed Rockefeller Center, it is now wholly owned by Mitsubishi Estate Co. Ltd;
• Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors - is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that advises donors in their philanthropic endeavors throughout the world;
• Rockefeller Research Laboratories Building - A major research center into cancer that was established in 1986 and named after Laurance, this is located at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center;
• Rockefeller Center - Home of the International Student Services office and department of philosophy, politics and law at the State University of New York at Binghamton;
• Rockefeller Chapel - Completed in 1928, this is the tallest building on the campus of the University of Chicago, established by Senior in 1889;
• Rockefeller Hall - Established by Senior in 1906, this building houses the Case Western Reserve University Physics Department;
• Rockefeller Hall - Established by Senior and completed in 1906, this building houses the Cornell University Physics Department;[30]
• Rockefeller Hall - Established by Senior in 1887, who granted Vassar College a $100,000 ($2.34 million in 2006 dollars) allowance to build additional, much needed lecture space. The final cost of the facility was $99,998.75. It now houses multi-purpose classrooms and departmental offices for political science, philosophy and math;
• Rockefeller Hall - Established by Senior and completed in 1886, this is the oldest building on the campus of Spelman College;
• Rockefeller College - Named after John D. Rockefeller III, this is a residential college at Princeton University;
• Michael C. Rockefeller Arts Center - Completed in 1969 in memory of Nelson Rockefeller's son, this is a cultural center at the State University of New York at Fredonia;
• The Michael C. Rockefeller Collection and the Department of Primitive Art - Completed in 1982 after being initiated by Nelson, this is a wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art;
• David and Peggy Rockefeller Building - A tribute to David's wife, Peggy Rockefeller, this is a new (completed in 2004) six-story building housing the main collection and temporary exhibition galleries of the family's Museum of Modern Art;
• Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden - Completed in 1949 by David, this is a major outdoor feature of the Museum of Modern Art;
• Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum - Opened in 1957 by Junior, this is a leading folk art museum just outside the historic district of Junior's Colonial Williamsburg;
• Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Hall - The freshman residence hall on the campus of Spelman College;
• Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Building - Completed in 1918, it is among other things a student residence hall at Spelman College, after the wife of Senior and after whom the College was named;
• Rockefeller State Park Preserve - Part of the 3,400-acre (14 km²) family estate in Westchester County, this 1,233-acre (5 km²) preserve was officially handed over to New York State in 1983, although it had previously always been open to the public;
• Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park - Established as a historical museum of conservation by Laurance during the 1990s.
• John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway - Established in 1972 through Congressional authorization, connecting Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks;
• Rockefeller Forest - Funded by Junior, this is located within Humboldt Redwoods State Park, California's largest redwood state park;
• Either of two US congressional committees {in 1972 - John D. III and 1975 - Nelson dubbed the Rockefeller Commission}.
• Rockefeller Park, a scenic park featuring gardens dedicated to several world nations along Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. between University Circle and Lake Erie in Cleveland.
• Winthrop Rockefeller Institute of the University of Arkansas System was established in 2005 with a grant from the Winthrop Rockefeller Charitable Trust. The educational center with conference and lodging facilities is located on Petit Jean Mountain near Morrilton, Arkansas, on the original grounds of Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller's model cattle farm.
• David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University.
• Rockefeller Quad at the Loomis Chaffee School
• Rockefeller Complex library at Niels Bohr Institute, Nørrebro, Copenhagen Municipality in Denmark

John Jr., through his son Nelson, purchased and then donated the land upon which sits the United Nations headquarters, in New York, in 1946. Earlier, in the 1920s, he had also donated a substantial amount towards the restoration and rehabilitation of major buildings in France after World War I, such as the Rheims Cathedral, the Fontainebleau Palace and the Palace of Versailles, for which he was later (1936) awarded France's highest decoration, the Grand Croix of the Legion d'Honneur (subsequently also awarded decades later to his son, David Rockefeller).

He also funded the notable excavations at Luxor in Egypt, as well as establishing a Classical Studies School in Athens. In addition, he provided the funding for the construction of the Palestine Archaeological Museum in East Jerusalem - the Rockefeller Museum.[31]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rockefeller family.

• Rockefeller Financial
• The Rockefeller Group
• The Rockefeller Foundation
• The Rockefellers – An American Experience Documentary
• Newspaper clippings about Rockefeller family in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW