What it was like to be as rich as Rockefeller: How a house gave shape and meaning to three generations of an iconic American family One hundred years ago America's richest man established a dynastic seat, the granite-clad Kykuit, high above the Hudson River. Though George Vanderbilt's 255-room Biltmore had recently put the American country house on the money map, John D. Rockefeller, who detested ostentation, had something simple in mind—at least until his son John Jr. and his charming wife, Abby, injected a spirit of noblesse oblige into the equation. Built to honor the senior Rockefeller, the house would also become the place above all others that anchored the family's memories. There could never be a better picture of the Rockefellers and their ambitions for the enormous fortune Senior had settled upon them. The authors take us inside the house and the family to observe a century of building and rebuilding—the ebb and flow of events and family feelings, the architecture and furnishings, the art and the gardens. A complex saga, The House the Rockefellers Built is alive with surprising twists and turns that reveal the tastes of a large family often sharply at odds with one another about the fortune the house symbolized.

The sequel to The Rockefeller Century surveys the family's story from 1952 to the present, revealing the public uses of the vast Rockefeller wealth, as well as the private dramas that have shaped such use. Authors Harr and Johnson are the only historians who have had access to previously secret family archival materials. Photographs and index.

This is the story of an American dynasty: the father, who built the fortune, the son who cleansed the name, the brothers who manipulated both the name and the fortune to their own ends, and the cousins who often wish they had inherited neither. Cast against the backdrop of America’s history is a spectacular array of characters: a bigamist, a robber baron, a philanthropist, a world-weary cynic, a drifting divorcee, polluters, environmentalists, art lovers and money manipulators. “[An] absorbing history of the Rockefeller family... a swiftly paced, extensively researched work of social history, a tale of family tensions and neuroses, of successes and failures in private and in public, all of it unfolding against a backdrop of money, influence and power.” — Steven R. Weisman, The New York Times “[A]n exceptionally good book” — John Kenneth Galbraith, The New York Review of Books “[Collier and Horowitz] present a sensitive family biography, more wistful than angry, more concerned with the impact of immense wealth on individual personality than on society. The authors received special access to the Rockefeller family archives.” — Gaddis Smith, Foreign Affairs “A startling tale emerges, shattering all we know and believe about the Rockefellers, destroying the legend brutally with significant revelations and — yet — winning a depth of sympathy for Rockefellers which three generations of PR men have not been able to manufacture.” — William Greider, Washington Post Book World “A skillful portrait of great wealth... A vast sweep of world-shaping episodes, dates and names.” — The Houston Chronicle “Impressive and intelligent... skillfully organized and presented so that it matters — not only to those curious about Rockefellers but to anyone curious about money and power in our society.” — Newsweek

Based on never–before used letters, diaries, and photographs from the Rockefeller Archive, The Rockefeller Women reveals the life of four generations of an extraordinary family: Eliza Davison Rockefeller, the Mother of John D., who instilled in her sons drive for success in business and Christian service; Laura Spelman Rockefeller, the wife of John D., the daughter of an Underground Railway operator and early supporter of racial freedom; Edith Rockefeller McCormick, the daughter of John D. and Laura, who became the queen of Chicago society, studied under Carl Jung and became a lay analyst; Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, the wife of John Jr. and mother of six children — Winthrop, Laurence, Nelson, John III, David and Babs — who helped found the Museum of Modern Art; Margaretta "Happy" Rockefeller whom married Nelson.

This book straddles the divide between personal story and period history. In his finely researched account, Jay D. Moore follows the life of a driven, genius stock analyst brought to the brink of insanity by alcohol. A second thread traces the story of a physician humbled and bewildered by the same struggle. Finally, the story traverses the path through life of an unimaginably wealthy man, telling how he decides to use his treasure to benefit others. It has been said that there are no new ideas, only history we have not yet learned. No new ideas were brought to the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, for everything the co-founders and early members did had been done before. What they managed to change, however, was to stick to their knitting. The facts presented here help separate the truth from legend, as the story of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Rockefeller connection is presented with more depth and analysis than has been brought to the subject before.

"Foundations are socially and politically significant, but this simple fact... has mostly been ignored by students of American history.... This collection represents an important contribution to an emerging field." -- Kenneth Prewitt, Social Science Research Council

“Offers . . . a clearer insight into the scope and function of philanthropy in political and private life and the impacts that women writers and activists had.” —Edith Wharton Review From the mid-nineteenth century until the rise of the modern welfare state in the early twentieth century, Anglo-American philanthropic giving gained an unprecedented measure of cultural authority as it changed in kind and degree. Civil society took on the responsibility for confronting the adverse effects of industrialism, and transnational discussions of poverty, urbanization, and women’s work, and sympathy provided a means of understanding and debating social reform. While philanthropic institutions left a transactional record of money and materials, philanthropic discourse yielded a rich corpus of writing that represented, rationalized, and shaped these rapidly industrializing societies, drawing on and informing other modernizing discourses including religion, economics, and social science. Showing the fundamentally transatlantic nature of this discourse from 1850 to 1920, the authors gather a wide variety of literary sources that crossed national and colonial borders within the Anglo-American range of influence. Through manifestos, fundraising tracts, novels, letters, and pamphlets, they piece together the intellectual world where philanthropists reasoned through their efforts and redefined the public sector.