Podcast

John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil Company, had a big impact on the education system. He donated a lot of money, around $180 million, to promote vocational-based education. However, this only benefited the middle class and didn't give equal opportunities for success. Rockefeller's true intention was to create more workers for himself and the economy. Despite his immense wealth, he was known as an unfair boss who didn't care about his employees. At the time of his death, he was considered the richest modern American. Hello, I'm Hunter, and in today's podcast, we'll be talking about how John D. Rockefeller influenced the education system forever. First we'll start off with who was John D. Rockefeller. He was born to a massive family of New York people, and he founded the Standard Oil Company in the 1870s. This company would go on to control about 90% of Standard Oil and pipelines by the 1880s. For the education system, he donated about $1 million to start the education system, which was roughly equivalent to $33 million in today's economy. In total, his family donated over $180 million to the education system. The donations to the schooling were to change from the current education system back then to a more vocational-based education system. People praised his generosity for going out of his way to help the students earn an education, but in reality, the education only promoted middle-class workers and didn't really give them accessibility to becoming super successful. John D. Rockefeller was quoted saying, I don't want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers, which basically proves the point that he only funded the school in order to make more workers for himself and more workers for the economy instead of more people like himself who were extremely rich. Rockefeller was said to be a very unfair boss by his employees. He didn't pay fair wages, the working conditions weren't great, and he just didn't really care to spend money on his employees. At the time of his passing in 1937, he was worth over $500 million, which in today's economy was about $10 billion. He's thought to be the, well, in like a comparative way, he was thought to be the richest modern American of all time.