Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1998

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prelude and Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-16

Chapters 17-20

Chapters 21-24

Chapters 25-28

Chapters 29-32

Chapters 33-35

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Chapters 29-32Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 29 Summary: “Massacre”

In April 1914, the year after the Rockefeller Foundation receives its charter, “the worst nightmare in Rockefeller history” unfolds in Colorado (571): A labor dispute at the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CFI) erupts into violence. Under poor management, CFI languished for more than a decade as an unprofitable outlier on the Rockefeller portfolio. Furthermore, Rockefeller has always been a staunch enemy of organized labor. In January 1910, a mining explosion kills 79 men, and management blames miners for the accident. When the United Mine Workers appear in Colorado and attempt to organize, the Rockefeller group, including Senior, Junior, and Gates, reacts as if it is “the industrial equivalent of Armageddon” (574).

Battle lines harden in September 1913, when thousands of CFI workers go on strike. Evicted from company homes, the strikers set up tents in nearby Ludlow and hold out for union recognition. CFI hires armed detectives, the Rocky Mountains’ equivalent of the notorious Pinkerton strike-breakers, and the governor calls out the Colorado National Guard. Mother Jones, the pro-union organizer, joins the UMW-supported workers. After a freezing winter in which thousands of miners and their families huddle in tents, the spring thaw brings armed conflict. Colorado guardsmen kill several miners, two women, and 11 children.

This “Ludlow Massacre” brings the wrath of organized labor and international anarchism down on the Rockefellers. Junior publicly holds the Rockefeller party line against collective bargaining, but privately he is rattled. In June, he recruits William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canada’s liberal former minister of labor, to advise him. King steers Junior in a more conciliatory direction. Junior’s proposal to the miners in the aftermath of Ludlow reeks of company paternalism, but it acknowledges the miners’ rights and thereby represents a permanent departure from Senior’s traditional hard line. In January 1915, Junior testifies before a federal commission on industrial relations and publicly admits to his mistakes. Mother Jones dislikes Junior’s company-driven plan, but she visits him and finds him sincere. Junior visits Colorado, and the miners vote to approve his proposal, which promotes labor-management cooperation and allows for the possibility of an organized union. Junior evolves into a rational voice on labor relations.

Chapter 30 Summary: “Introvert and Extrovert”

Cettie’s death on March 12, 1915, followed by the death of Senator Nelson Aldrich a month later, creates a pall of mourning around Junior and Abby. From the earliest years of their marriage, Rockefeller has always been attentive to Cettie, and he remained so to the end, but he also refuses to modify his seasonal travels from home to home, even when her illness prevents her from accompanying him. When she dies, he is at Ormond Beach in Florida. After receiving news of Cettie’s death, Junior and Abby “saw something they had never seen before: Senior was openly weeping” (594).

Meanwhile, Edith remains in Switzerland with severe depression and anxiety. She receives treatment from the famous psychiatrist Dr. Carl Jung and immerses herself in psychoanalysis. Her husband Harold McCormick also receives treatment from Jung. Rockefeller struggles to understand the McCormicks’ newfound passion for therapy. Notwithstanding Jung’s extended care, Edith fails to overcome her anxiety, and her marriage falls apart as she and Harold have affairs with European fortune-seekers. Edith does not return to the United States until 1921, more than six years after her mother’s death. She and Harold divorce. In the early 1920s, Edith makes poor financial decisions and remains committed to Jungian psychology.

Chapter 31 Summary: “Confessional”

With Cettie and Bessie gone, and with his other children either busy with their own families or plagued by their own troubles, Rockefeller has little choice but to bear the prospect of a solitary retirement. Curiously, his spirits lighten as he ages. He surrounds himself with positive-minded, even playful companions. In 1918, he buys a three-story home in Ormond Beach, Florida, called The Casements, where he devotes himself to golf. The press now treats him as a venerable-yet-amusing icon. It is during this time that William O. Inglis conducts the three-year interview with Rockefeller that will convince Chernow to write this biography.

Chapter 32 Summary: “Dynastic Succession”

Between 1917 and 1922, Rockefeller gives a total of $475 million to his children, nearly all of it to Junior, as Alta and Edith receive $12 million each. This dynastic maneuver is “the biggest intrafamily transfer of money in history” (623). Junior, the youngest of Rockefeller’s children, effectively becomes his sole heir. Long before receiving this remarkable windfall, Junior and Abby had six children and built a nine-story mansion at 10 West 54th Street. Now, they vacation on a scenic Maine island and become ardent conservationists. Abby develops an interest in modern art and social causes. Junior clings to her, but their marriage appears passionate and blissful, based on mutual love and respect. Junior and Abby’s children remember their grandfather Rockefeller as a playful figure, whereas Junior struck his children as a rigid and joyless taskmaster.

Chapters 29-32 Analysis

Chernow describes the Ludlow Massacre as a seminal moment in Junior’s struggle to preserve his high esteem for his father while also charting his own course. Former liberal Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King called Junior’s testimony before the industrial-relations commission “the turning point in Junior’s life” (586). While Chernow credits Mackenzie King with Junior’s transformation in 1914-1915, he also shows that the soul-searching that led to Mackenzie King’s hiring originated with Junior himself. A tragic episode in the history of labor, the Ludlow Massacre nonetheless constitutes a crucial moment in Junior’s moral and intellectual development, in his lifelong struggle with Father and Son dynamics, and in the transformation of the Rockefeller family reputation.

Much like Junior, Edith struggled with the Rockefeller legacy. Whereas Junior had the opportunity to work out his internal conflicts in the business and philanthropic arenas, Edith had little choice but to retreat into her own mind, particularly after the death of her four-year-old son in 1901—like the other Rockefeller Women, she had no outlet outside the domestic sphere. Junior tried to conform to the family’s expectations, while Edith openly rebelled. Chernow describes Edith a free-spirit with dubious judgment—a semi-tragic figure with crippling anxiety—but he also acknowledges her as a “pioneer” among Rockefellers, “the first to peer into the mysteries of human nature and confront social inhibitions and moral restraints that had long been held sacrosanct by the family” (603). It is impossible to say how Edith felt about Rockefeller’s decision to give nearly all of his money to Junior, but it cannot have struck her as an act of fairness.

Rockefeller bore these troubled times as best he could and even appeared more relaxed as he ventured deeper into retirement. It is significant that Chernow describes Rockefeller’s new and lighter approach to life in the same chapter as the three-year Inglis interview (1917-20), for it is impossible to imagine the obsessively secretive Rockefeller of Standard Oil days agreeing to such an interview. Critics often took a cynical view of Rockefeller’s philanthropy, as well as his rapprochement with the press, as if these were gimmicks to soothe his guilty conscience and shape his public image. Chernow’s evidence, however, shows that these appear to have been authentic manifestations of Rockefeller’s native decency—or at least the decent side of his complex personality.