What I learned from American Experience: The Rockefellers — 1 year ago
A whole lot! But the thing that stood out to me the most was this ideas of contrast and polarity in both J. Rockefeller Sr. & Jr., albeit it expressed a bit differently in each one. Although Sr. was villianized because of his cutthroat business practices and brutal labor union crushing, he at the same time felt an immense religious purpose in making money and distributing it to philanthropic causes. Jr. felt suffocated due to his wealth and (what he felt) were tremendous responsibilities that came along with the priviledge. He suffered several nervous breakdowns due to this and due to shame he felt about his family’s past. He ended up giving away more money than even his dad gave.



