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Gilded Age Hero

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The world is constantly evolving. Time periods come and go, but certain ones stay with us and are remembered greatly. Of such, the Gilded Age is one of those few that made a very large impact on our world today. The Gilded Age is the period in American history from around 1870-1900’s where the United States population and economy grew quickly in a short amount of time causing extensive amounts of slave work and wealthy individuals to live pretentious lifestyles. During this period, John D. Rockefeller, The founder of the Standard Oil Company, became one of the world’s well known wealthiest individuals and a major philanthropist. In total, he controlled some 90 percent of the nation’s refineries and pipelines In America. Rockefeller didn’t …show more content…

Rockefeller was in fact a villain, he is also thought of as a hero to the Gilded Age because of the few good acts he did. During the Gilded Age, oil was very expensive and difficult to acquire.Overall, only the wealthy and well privileged had much access to it, but “Standard Oil developed the world’s largest oil refineries and drove down the cost of refining oil,” (World Book, Rockefeller). With Rockefeller as the head of the company, he was able to expand access of oil to those who didn't have as much money and produce large amounts of oil for little cost. With his new ideas and methods, he was able to cut down oil cost and produce more of it more efficiently and quicker than that of the past. Due to becoming one of the wealthiest individuals in the United States, Rockefeller had a substantial amount of money and “He gave away about $540 million during his lifetime. He gave most of his money to the public through foundations he established himself and through other organizations,” (World Book, Rockefeller). These other foundations, which were mainly universities, highly profited and grew off of these generous donations from Rockefeller. They are still functioning today and Rockefellers impact on them has never been forgotten. As a result, John D. Rockefeller was thought of to be a hero rather than a villain. Besides all this good he may have done, his selfish acts can’t go unseen and unnoticed from his action.
John D Rockefeller lived a higher, better life than almost every American during this time age. He also obtained an extravagant amount of power through his work and company. His good deeds were overruled by his many bad deeds therefore making him a villain rather than a hero.

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