This is the twelveth in my series of posts about the five businessmen the History Channel profiled in a terribly inaccurate and un-historical TV miniseries titled The Men Who Built America. I’m writing these posts in response to several comments and e-mails from TV viewers who have expressed interest in a more accurate version of the story. (Click here to see all Al’s columns on the program and its subjects.)
Post #12: John D. Rockefeller Grows Up Poor
John Davison Rockefeller was born on July 8 of 1839 in Richford, NY. At the time of his birth, railroad trains had been operating in the US for about eight years. JP Morgan was two years old, Andrew Carnegie was not yet four, and forty-five year old Cornelius Vanderbilt was operating a fleet of steamboats in and around Long Island Sound. William Ford, future father of Henry, had been in the United States for three years and was still unmarried and struggling to make a living.