Legend of John D. Rockefeller: The Life of an Oil Tycoon Who Monopolized 90% of US Oil Industry

Then, in the early 1870s, a quiet, almost retiring man started to transform the landscape of American industry forever. He did not do it with fanfare or flamboyance.

He was not the type to holler across board rooms or make dramatic, grandstanding gestures. John Davison Rockefeller was deliberate, moderated, and methodical, ad infinitum.

Somehow by the turn of the century, he had amassed an empire that controlled 90 percent of the United States oil refining industry.

Not through brute force,...