JD Rockefeller: The Business Tycoon Who Changed American SocietyFor 29 years, Standard Oil Trust dominated the oil refining industry around the world. The leader of this magnificent franchise was the industrialist of the century, John Davison Rockefeller, Sr. Coming from humble beginnings, Rockefeller had to work hard to prosper in life. When he died, Rockefeller had become the richest man who had ever lived. He created the first American trust, which was soon copied by other businesses, thus changing American society. The idea of ​​the trust created a huge gap between America's middle-class population and the "gilded" upper class that controlled all large businesses and corporations by the mid-20th century. JD Rockefeller was born on July 8, 1839 into a humble, middle-class family in Richford, New York. With a strictly Baptist mother, Rockefeller's childhood was religiously oriented, a tool used by his mother to instill stability in his home. From the time of his birth, his mother moved the family all over the United States to search for the perfect place to reside. In 1853, the family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, and settled there. Rockefeller graduated from high school and attended business college for a few months. At the age of 16, Rockefeller found work as a clerk in a production company. Rockefeller entered the same business at age 19, with a young Englishman named Maurice Clark. The two men profited greatly from the company called Clark and Rockefeller. Thanks to Clark's exceptional field work and Rockefeller's organized office management and accounting, their business prospered during the Civil War. The company also branched out after the Pennsylvania oil strike in 1859...... middle of document......ent. Instead, family members worked together in close-knit communities. After the Standard Oil empire was swept away, America changed a lot financially and economically. More and more large corporations began to fill the landscape, where the skilled labor of the past was rapidly being replaced by machines and unskilled labor. As more and more companies began to pay out the minimum wage, company owners continued to get richer and workers barely earned enough to survive. As a result, the wealth of the middle class has remained more or less the same, but the wealth of the upper class has grown exponentially. This impulse began America's Gilded Age in which industrialization grew rapidly, but the level of poverty increased due to the reduction of the minimum wage. In turn, the middle class began to suffer greatly, but the upper class lived very well.