He was the first billionaire, one of the most famous businessmen who ever walked the Earth. And to one of the most well-known journalists of his day, he deserved nothing but revile for his accomplishments.
John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil, is remembered as both a ruthless monopolist and generous philanthropist. Ida Tarbell, a journalist, had other words for him in a 19-part series she wrote for McClure’s Magazine in 1905.
She described the industrialist as “‘a living mummy,’ hideous and diseased, leprous and reptilian,” according to Ron Chernow, the author of a hefty 1998 biography on Rockefeller, Titan. Chernow, who also wrote a biography of Alexander Hamilton that inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda’s blockbuster musical, wasn’t so much erasing Rockefeller’s sins as pointing out that Tarbell was not, strictly speaking, “objective.”
