The Rockefellers originated in Rhineland in Germany and family members moved to the Americas in the early 18th century, while through Eliza Davison, with family roots in Middlesex County, New Jersey, John D. Rockefeller and William A. Rockefeller Jr. and their descendants are also of Scots-Irish ancestry.[4]
The Rockefeller family traces their origin to the now abandoned German village Rockenfeld in the early 17th century. The American family branch is descended from Johann Peter Rockefeller (1681-1763), who migrated from the Rhineland to Philadelphia in the Province of Pennsylvania around 1723. In the US, he became a plantation owner and landholder in Somerville, and Amwell, New Jersey.[5][6][7]
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.[14]
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.[15]
Much of the wealth has been locked up in the 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. The Rockefeller Center is no longer owned by the family. Its present chairman and patriarch 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);
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.[21]
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.[24]
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 historic homes. A total of 81 Rockefeller residences are on the National Register of Historic Places.[25] 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.[26]
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 favourite 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 a 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.
The Rocks - 1940 Shepard Street NW and 2121 Park Road NW, Washington, DC - The 12,000 square foot house sits on 15.9 acres bordering Rock Creek Park; and is the largest residential property in the District of Columbia. Built by Daisy Blodgett for her daughter Mona in 1927, the name refers to its location, not the current owner. The property was purchased by Jay Rockefeller in 1984 when he became US Senator for West Virginia. He and his wife, Sharon Percy Rockefeller continue to live there.[28]
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 disgrace 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.[30]
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."[31]
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.[32] 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.[33] 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.[34]
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.[35] 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.[36]
The Rockefeller name is imprinted in numerous places throughout the United States, including within New York City, but also in Cleveland, where the family originates:
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 endeavours throughout the world;
Rockefeller Research Laboratories Building - A major research centre 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 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;[37]
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;
Michael C. Rockefeller Arts Center - Completed in 1969 in memory of Nelson Rockefeller's son, this is a cultural centre 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 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.
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.
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).
The family was honoured for its conservation efforts in November 2005, by the National Audubon Society, one of the United States' largest and oldest conservation organizations, at which over 30 family members attended. At the event, the society's president, John Flicker, stated: "Cumulatively, no other family in America has made the contribution to conservation that the Rockefeller family has made".[39]
In 2016 fifth-generation descendants of John Sr. criticized ExxonMobil, one of the successors to his company Standard Oil, for their record on climate change. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Rockefeller Family Fund both backed reports suggesting that ExxonMobil knew more about the threat of global warming than it had disclosed. David Kaiser, grandson of David Rockefeller Sr. and president of the Rockefeller Family Fund, said that the "...company seems to be morally bankrupt." Valerie Rockefeller Wayne, daughter of former Senator Jay Rockefeller, said, "Because the source of the family wealth is fossil fuels, we feel an enormous moral responsibility for our children, for everyone -- to move forward."[40] The Rockefeller Brothers Fund announced it was divesting from fossil fuels in September 2014, the Rockefeller Family Fund announced plans to divest in March 2016, and the Rockefeller Foundation pledged to dump their fossil fuel holdings in December 2020.[41][42][43] With a $5 billion endowment, the Rockefeller Foundation was "the largest US foundation to embrace the rapidly growing divestment movement." CNN writer Matt Egan noted, "This divestment is especially symbolic because the Rockefeller Foundation was founded by oil money."[43] In May 2021 Rockefeller descendants Rebecca Rockefeller Lambert and Peter Gill Case announced a ten-year funding initiative, the Equation Campaign, to fight new fossil fuel development.[44]
The Rockefeller family archives are held at the Rockefeller Archive Center in Pocantico Hills, North Tarrytown, New York.[45] At present, the archives of John D. Rockefeller Sr. William Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller Jr., Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Abby Rockefeller Mauzé, John D. Rockefeller III, Blanchette Rockefeller, and Nelson Rockefeller are processed and open by appointment to readers in the Archive Center's reading room. Processed portions of the papers of Laurance Rockefeller are also open. In addition, the Archive Center has a microfilm copy of the Winthrop Rockefeller papers, the originals of which are held at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock. The papers of the family office, known as the Office of the Messrs. Rockefeller, are also open for research, although those portions that relate to living family members are closed.[46]
The following is a list of philanthropies and other non-profit institutions which were made by or have otherwise been closely tied to the Rockefeller family.
^World's largest private fortune - see Ron Chernow, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr., London: Warner Books, 1998. (p.370)
^The Political Economy of Third World Intervention: Mines, Money, and U.S. Policy in the Congo Crisis, David N. Gibbs, University of Chicago Press 1991, page 113
^Alsop, Stewart (2016). Nixon & Rockefeller: A Double Portrait. Open Road Media. ISBN9781480446007. Although the Nixon family was Quaker and the Rockefeller family Baptist
^Schmiesing, Kevin (2016). Merchants and Ministers: A History of Businesspeople and Clergy in the United States. Lexington Books. p. 115. ISBN9781498539258.
^W. Williams, Peter (2016). Religion, Art, and Money: Episcopalians and American Culture from the Civil War to the Great Depression. University of North Carolina Press. p. 176. ISBN9781469626987. The names of fashionable families who were already Episcopalian, like the Morgans, or those, like the Fricks, who now became so, goes on interminably: Aldrich, Astor, Biddle, Booth, Brown, Du Pont, Firestone, Ford, Gardner, Mellon, Morgan, Procter, the Vanderbilt, Whitney. Episcopalians branches of the Baptist Rockefellers and Jewish Guggenheims even appeared on these family trees.
^Women in the family with no control over the family fortune—see Bernice Kert, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller: The Woman in the Family. New York: Random House, 1993. (p.100)
^Managing the family wealth, 1992 New York Times article Rockefeller Family Tries to Keep A Vast Fortune From Dissipating (see External Links). (Note: The names and nature of these departments may have changed since 1992.)
^The Edifice Complex: The Architecture of Power, By Deyan Sudjic, Penguin, April 7, 2011, page 245–255
^Funded colleges and Ivy League universities - see Robert Shaplen, Toward the Well-Being of Mankind: Fifty Years of the Rockefeller Foundation, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1964. (passim)
^Family unity maintained over the decades - see John Ensor Harr and Peter J. Johnson, The Rockefeller Century: Three Generations of America's Greatest Family, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988. (pp.370-71, passim); David's unifying influence - see Memoirs (pp.346-7)
^Haskell, Mary B. (Winter 1996). "Brother, Can You Share a Dime?: The Rockefeller Family and Libraries". Libraries & Culture. 31 (1): 130–143. JSTOR25548427.
^Collier, Peter; Horowitz, David (1976). The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty. New York City, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. pp. 11–12. ISBN0-03-008371-0. [John D. Rockefeller] had few friends in Cleveland's Central High School...although he did form a lasting bond with classmate Mark Hanna, later to be a U.S. senator, presidential kingmaker, and political fixer for the Standard Oil trust.
^Josephson, Matthew (October 27, 2015) [1934]. The Robber Barons: The Classic Account of the Influential Capitalists Who Transformed America's Future. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. pp. 432–433. ISBN978-0-15-676790-3. ...[T]he various invasions of Harriman would have been impossible without tremendous draughts upon the reservoir of money at 26 Broadway. Else he could not have seized and rebuilt so quickly the Union Pacific; nor added to this Colis Huntington's huge Southern Pacific…To carry these enterprises, Harriman's biographer tells us, the men of the Standard Oil family ' gave Harriman financial support when he needed tens of millions of dollars, in credit or cash'.
^Domhoff, G.William (1996). State Autonomy or Class Dominance?: Case Studies on Policy Making In America. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter. pp. 60–61. ISBN0-202-30512-0.
^ abcdAuzanneau, Matthieu (2018) [2015]. Oil, Power and War: A Dark History. Chelsea Green Publishing. p. 80. ISBN978-1-60358-743-3. The dismantling of Standard Oil appears to have been only a formality. The subsidiaries sold their products under the same brand and divided the sales territories; during the next two or three decades, there was virtually no perceptible competition between them...¶Above all, the main shareholders remained the same as before, beginning with John D. Rockefeller, who retained about one-quarter of the shares of each of the thirty-three companies created after the Supreme Court ruling.
^Caro, Robert (1975) [1974]. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. Random House, Inc. p. 1067. ISBN0-394-72024-5. There is scarcely a bank in New York State with which the Rockefellers do not have some link, direct or hidden. As for the state's largest bank, the Chase Manhattan Bank that is probably the most powerful financial institution anywhere on earth, Chase is, as [Theodore H.] White notes, 'the last great bank controlled by an individual family—the Rockefellers.
^"Who Built the Roads? A Modern Parable". The Railroad Telegrapher: Volume 39, Part 2. Order of Railroad Telegraphers. 1922. pp. 937–938. Retrieved March 4, 2023. William Rockefeller, brother of John D., died a few weeks ago in his palatial home on the Hudson.
^“Nomination of Nelson A. Rockefeller to be Vice President of the United States” Hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Ninety-Third Congress, Second Session, November 21, 1974, (Serial No. 45), p.1069. "As for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, in 1972 more than half of the 15 persons listed as trustees were members of the [Rockefeller] Family's investment counselors...[T]he Fund portfolio's largest holdings are in Exxon, Standard Oil of California, Chase Manhattan Bank, and Rockefeller Center, all considered controlled by, or heavily influenced by, the Rockefeller Family. The next largest holding is in the Chrysler Corporation where in the period 1966-1970, they held 80,000 shares of Chrysler common stock plus $1.6 million in notes of the Chrysler Financial and Realty Corporation. Remember that J.Richardson Dilworth has been a director of Chrysler since 1962, when the Rockefellers bought a major stock position in that company."
^Collier, Peter; Horowitz, David (1976). The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. p. 389. ISBN0-03-008371-0. Nelson [Rockefeller] and Laurance's Great-Uncle William Rockefeller had been, in fact, one of the original owners of Con Ed, and based on figures Junior had given TNEC investigators in 1937, the [Rockefeller] family's current holdings would amount to better than $10 million.
^Kaufman, Michael T. (July 11, 2004). "Laurance Rockefeller, Venture Capitalist and Philanthropist, Dies at 94". The New York Times. New York City. Retrieved May 26, 2021. In the late 1930's, [Laurance Rockefeller] provided much of the capital to help Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, the World War I fighter pilot, start Eastern Airlines and was for many years the airline's largest stockholder.
^Hart, John Mason. Empire and Revolution: The Americans in Mexico since the Civil War. Berkeley: University of California Press 2002, pp. 183–84.
^ abcdeWhite, Leslie A. (2016). Modern Capitalist Culture. New York City, NY: Routledge. p. 379. ISBN978-1-59874-157-5. The Rockefeller family owned enough stock in five of the 200 largest non-financial corporations to insure virtual control over them. They were: (1) Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) of whose stock 13.5 percent was owned by members of the Rockefeller family and by family foundations; this was by far the largest block of stock extant. (2) Socony Vacuum Oil Company, Inc, 16.3 percent of whose common stock was owned by members of the Rockefeller family; (3) Standard Oil (Indiana), 11.4 percent of common stock owned by family and foundations; (4) Standard Oil Company of California, 11.9 percent of common stock held by family, 0.5 percent by foundations; (5) Ohio Oil Company, family held 9.5 percent, foundations held 9.1 percent of common stock; family and foundations each owned about 10 percent of the preferred stock
^Shannon, David A. (1977). Twentieth Century America, Volume I: The Progressive Era. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally College Publishing Company. pp. 73–74.
^Collier, Peter; Horowitz, David (1976). The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty. New York City, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. p. 296. ISBN0-03-008371-0.
^Lasky, Betty (1984). RKO, The Biggest Little Major of Them All. Prentice Hall, Inc. p. 55. ISBN0-13-781451-8.
^Ansell, Martin R. (1998). Oil Baron of the West - Edward L. Doheny and the Development of Petroleum Industry in California and Mexico. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University. ISBN0-8142-0749-9.
^ abCollier, Peter; Horowitz, David (1976). The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. p. 389. ISBN0-03-008371-0. The [Standard Oil] trust was dead, but Rockefeller continued to hold controlling interest[s] in the constituent companies. As late as 1931, he had some 23 percent of Standard Oil of New Jersey, 18 percent of Standard of Ohio, 15 percent of Standard Oil of California, and 10 percent Standard of Indiana
^Collier, Peter; Horowitz, David (1976). The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. p. 389. ISBN0-03-008371-0. [Rockefeller's] agreement with Morgan on the Mesabi property had made him the largest stockholder in U.S. Steel and given him a seat on the board of directors.
^ abGrant, H. Roger (2019) [2004]. "Follow the Flag": A History of the Wabash Railroad Company. Northern Illinois University Press. p. 265. ISBN978-1-5017-4777-9.
Drury, George H. (2007). "Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range Railway". In Middleton, William D.; Smerk, George M.; Diehl, Roberta L. (eds.). Encyclopedia of North American Railroads. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. pp. 398–399. ISBN978-0-253-34916-3.
O'Connell, Dennis, Top 10 Richest Men Of All Time, AskMen.com, undated.
Price, Theodore H.; Spillane, Richard, eds. (1917). "The Economic Panorama of the Week". Commerce and Finance, Volume 6. pp. 452–457. Retrieved February 29, 2024.
Rose, Kenneth W., Select Rockefeller Philanthropies, Booklet (pdf, 23 pages) of the Rockefeller Archive Center, 2004.
Listing of University of Chicago Nobel Laureates, News Office, University of Chicago website, undated.
Carnegie Corporation of New York, Celebrating 100 years of Andrew Carnegie's Philanthropy - awarding the inaugural Andrew Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy to David and Laurance Rockefeller, 2001.
The Rockefeller Archive Center, John D. Rockefeller, Junior, 1874–1960, Overview of his life and philanthropy, 1997.
Chernow, Ron. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. London: Warner Books, 1998.
Collier, Peter; Horowitz, David (1976). The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty. New York City, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. ISBN0-03-008371-0.
Elmer, Isabel Lincoln. Cinderella Rockefeller: A Life of Wealth Beyond All-Knowing. New York: Freundlich Books, 1987.
Ernst, Joseph W., editor. "Dear Father"/"Dear Son:" Correspondence of John D. Rockefeller and John D. Rockefeller Jr. New York: Fordham University Press, with the Rockefeller Archive Center, 1994.
Flynn, John T. God's Gold: The Story of Rockefeller and His Times. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1932.
Fosdick, Raymond B. John D. Rockefeller Jr.: A Portrait. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956.
Fosdick, Raymond B. The Story of the Rockefeller Foundation. New York: Transaction Publishers, Reprint, 1989.
Gitelman, Howard M. Legacy of the Ludlow Massacre: A Chapter in American Industrial Relations. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988.
Gonzales, Donald J., Chronicled by. The Rockefellers at Williamsburg: Backstage with the Founders, Restorers and World-Renowned Guests. McLean, Virginia: EPM Publications, Inc., 1991.
Hanson, Elizabeth. The Rockefeller University Achievements: A Century of Science for the Benefit of Humankind, 1901-2001. New York: The Rockefeller University Press, 2000.
Harr, John Ensor, and Peter J. Johnson. The Rockefeller Century: Three Generations of America's Greatest Family. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988.
Harr, John Ensor, and Peter J. Johnson. The Rockefeller Conscience: An American Family in Public and in Private. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1991.
Hawke, David Freeman. John D.: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers. New York: Harper & Row, 1980.
Hidy, Ralph W. and Muriel E. Hidy. Pioneering in Big Business: History of Standard Oil Company (New Jersey), 1882-1911. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1955.
Jonas, Gerald. The Circuit Riders: Rockefeller Money and the Rise of Modern Science. New York: W.W.Norton and Co., 1989.
Josephson, Emanuel M. The Federal Reserve Conspiracy and the Rockefellers: Their Gold Corner. New York: Chedney Press, 1968.
Josephson, Matthew. The Robber Barons. London: Harcourt, 1962.
Kert, Bernice. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller: The Woman in the Family. New York: Random House, 2003.
Klein, Henry H. Dynastic America and Those Who Own It. New York: Kessinger Publishing, [1921] Reprint, 2003.
Kutz, Myer. Rockefeller Power: America's Chosen Family. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974.
Lundberg, Ferdinand. America's Sixty Families. New York: Vanguard Press, 1937.
Lundberg, Ferdinand. The Rich and the Super-Rich: A Study in the Power of Money Today. New York: Lyle Stuart, 1968.
Lundberg, Ferdinand. The Rockefeller Syndrome. Secaucus, New Jersey: Lyle Stuart, Inc., 1975.
Manchester, William R. A Rockefeller Family Portrait: From John D. to Nelson. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1959.
Moscow, Alvin. The Rockefeller Inheritance. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1977.
Nevins, Allan. John D. Rockefeller: The Heroic Age of American Enterprise. 2 vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940.
Nevins, Allan. Study In Power: John D. Rockefeller, Industrialist and Philanthropist. 2 vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953.
Rockefeller, John D. Random Reminiscences of Men and Events. New York: Doubleday, 1908; London: W. Heinemann. 1909; Sleepy Hollow Press and Rockefeller Archive Center, (Reprint) 1984.
Roussel, Christine. The Art of Rockefeller Center. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2006.
Scheiffarth, Engelbert. Der New Yorker Gouverneur Nelson A. Rockefeller und die Rockenfeller im Neuwieder Raum Genealogisches Jahrbuch, Vol 9, 1969, p16-41.
Sealander, Judith. Private Wealth and Public Life: Foundation Philanthropy and the Reshaping of American Social Policy, from the Progressive Era to the New Deal. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
Siegmund-Schultze, Reinhard. Rockefeller and the Internationalization of Mathematics Between the Two World Wars: Documents and Studies for the Social History of Mathematics in the 20th Century. Boston: Birkhauser Verlag, 2001.
Stasz, Clarice. The Rockefeller Women: Dynasty of Piety, Privacy, and Service. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995.
Tarbell, Ida M. The History of the Standard Oil Company. New York: Phillips & Company, 1904.
Winks, Robin W. Laurance S. Rockefeller: Catalyst for Conservation, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1997.
children of John Davison Rockefeller III children of Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller children of Laurance Spelman Rockefeller children of Winthrop Rockefeller children of David Rockefeller children of Godfrey Stillman Rockefeller
Kykuit, the landmark family home in Sleepy Hollow, New York
The Casements, the family's former winter residence in Florida
Rockefeller Guest House, New York City
