Chapter II

Junior: The Image Maker

Since Rockefeller lived to the amazing age of 98, his only child John Jr did not inherit full control over the fortune - and foundations until he was 63 and nearly retired. When 'Junior', as he was called, attempted to take an active part in the family business in the first decade of the twentieth century, he found that he was being held personally responsible for the reign of terror and bloodshed in industrial America, which reached its height in 1915 after the Rockefeller controlled Colorado Fuel and Iron company was closed down by workers who demanded the right to collective bargaining and the enforcement of state labor laws which the company had been ignoring for years. The company, with the Rockefellers' active support, called in a private army of gunmen and the state militia to crush the strike and in the ensuing violence the tent camp of miners at Ludlow, Colorado, was ruthlessly sprayed with machine gun fire and burned to the ground. Along with several workers, 11 children and two women were killed in what became known nationally as the 'Ludlow Massacre'. With great gusto the national Press used the image of 'roasted children' to portray 'Junior' as a new national villain. Years later Junior told his official biographer Raymond B. Fosdick, that the Colorado strike was "one of the most important things that ever happened to the family" - if nothing else, it demonstrated to him that the future of the family depended on creating a new public image, one outside corporate business. An entire new public relations industry was created to focus public attention completely on the charitable work of the family. Junior turned the family business over to professional managers, and undertook such projects as saving the redwood trees in California and creating three new national parks. He financed crusades such as the Interchurch World Movement, an unsuccessful interdenominationalist effort "to Christianize the world". He also financed the effort to prohibit the consumption of alcohol in the United States.

He assiduously avoided politics, though he married Abby Aldrich, daughter of Senator Winthrop Aldrich, the most important Republican leader of his time. His only important business venture, according to his biographer, was the erection of Rockefeller Center, a colossal office building complex on Fifth Avenue in the heart of New York City which he bravely built at the height of the depression in the 1930s. Rockefeller Center, which today provides some 10 million square feet of office space and brings 174 in rent in the order of a hundred million dollars a year for the Rockefeller family, instantly became a major tourist attraction with its Art Deco murals workers in factories and Radio City from which NBC broadcasts its programs. The Center also provided 'Room 5600' which consists in fact of the entire 55th and 56th floors of the tallest building. From Room 5600, the family's far-flung finances and public were professionally managed.

The public relations operation in Room became especially effective. All Information about the Rockefellers is stored in either "sensitive" or "public"' files. The former, which might conflict with the image being promoted, is embargoed or destroyed, The latter is disseminated to writers of authorized biographies and vetted journalists. Through the careful cultivation of the press, the public image of public enemy that Rockefeller Junior inherited was subtly transformed to one of a public benefactor. When died at the age of 86, his six children had already ascended to the highest strata of the social and political order. No longer outcasts, the Rockefeller heirs became the twentieth-century American aristocracy.


Questions? Email me at edepstein@worldnet.att.net
This website is still (heavily) under construction. The webmistress can be reached at june@jooon.com