ies that it then controlled were separated into individual firms. In his biography, Study in Power, John D. Rockefeller, Industrialist and Philanthropist, the historian Allan Nevins reports that Rockefeller at that time owned 244,500 of the company’s total of 983,383 outstanding shares. PHILANTHROPY Rockefeller was 57 years old in 1896 when he decided that others should take over the day-to-day leadership of Standard Oil. He now focused his efforts on philanthropy, giving away the bulk of his fortune in ways designed to do the most good as determined by careful study, experience and the help of expert advisers. From the time he had begun earning money as a boy, he had been giving a share of his income to his church and charities. His philanthropy grew out of his early family training, religious convictions, and financial habits. "I believe it is every man’s religious duty to get all he can honestly and to give all he can," he once wrote. During the 1850s, he made regular contributions to the Baptist church, and by the time he was 21, he was giving not only to his own but to other denominations, as well as to a foreign Sunday school and an African-American church. Support of religious institutions and African-American education remained among his foremost philanthropic interests throughout his life. THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO As his wealth grew in the 1870s and 1880s, Rockefeller came to favor a cooperative and conditional system of giving in which he would agree to supply part of the sum needed for a particular project if the others interested in it also would provide substantial financial support. It was on such a conditional basis that Rockefeller participated in the founding of the University of Chicago. The American Baptist Education Society had resolved in 1889 to establish a "well-equipped college" in Chicago. At the urging of the society’s director, the Rev. Frederick T. Gates, Rockefeller offered to give $600,00...
