Introduction

Abstract

Successful families, like everyone else, hope that each of today’s members of the family and all those generations to follow will be successful, healthy, and content.

In the five generations since the death of John D. Rockefeller in 1937, the Rockefellers have produced business leaders and bankers, industrialists and oil barons, senators and governors, a vice president, educators, artists, writers, and, of course, philanthropists. It is a family known not only for its inherited wealth but also for its creation of new wealth. It’s estimated that nearly 40 nonprofits, including public and private foundations, were started with the resources and leadership of the Rockefellers, from the University of Chicago to the Rockefeller University, and from the Rockefeller Foundation to the Rockefeller Family Fund. The Rockefeller philanthropy has extended from fostering health worldwide to the preservation and collection of the world’s greatest art, and from preserving our historical treasures, such as Williamsburg, to our natural resources and national parks. Today, there are over 150 living blood relatives of John D. Rockefeller. If there is such a phenomenon as a Legacy Family, the Rockefellers would certainly be one.