SIGNED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER—"BOTH THE WONDER AND TERROR OF AMERICAN BUSINESS"—LIMITED FIRST EDITION OF A VISIT TO MR. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, 1905, ONE OF ONLY 425 COPIES

(ROCKEFELLER, John D.). A Visit to Mr. John D. Rockefeller by Neighbors and Friends at Forest Hill Cleveland Ohio. (Cleveland: Privately Published), September 26, 1905. Quarto, original brown calf spine, original gilt-lettered black paper boards, uncut. Housed in a custom clamshell box.

Limited first edition, number 391 of only 425 copies signed by Rockefeller beneath his frontispiece portrait, commemorating a visit by Cleveland leaders to Rockefeller at his Forest Hill home —"the roots of the Rockefeller fortune and dynasty are to be found in Cleveland… he considered Cleveland home."

In his time, "John D. Rockefeller vied with Andrew Carnegie for the title of the world's richest man" (Chernow, Titan, 3). This memorial volume, signed by Rockefeller below his frontispiece portrait, is one of only 425 limited edition copies issued by the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce to commemorate a visit paid to his Forest Hill home on September 26, 1905. When Rockefeller and his wife welcomed the visitors, they were told the day had very special meaning for Rockefeller: "the day chosen… chanced to the 50th anniversary of Mr. Rockefeller's obtaining, as a young man 16 years of age, his first position to work, and that this anniversary was one held in high regard." Historians have observed: "It would not be an overstatement to say that the roots of the Rockefeller fortune and dynasty are to be found in Cleveland." It was where he "laid the foundation of a financial and industrial empire, established a commitment to charitable giving and philanthropy, and devised a corporate structure the likes of which the world had never seen" (Gregor, Forest Hill, 7).

"In many ways John D. Rockefeller exemplified the enterprising young businessman of his era." Shortly after his impoverished family moved to the outskirts of Cleveland in 1853, the young Rockefeller, barely 16, began his quest for a job, "Each morning, he left his boardinghouse at 8 o'clock, clothed in a dark suit with a high collar and black tie, to make his rounds of appointed firms… when he exhausted his list, he simply started over from the top." Finally, on September 26, 1855, he walked into the Cleveland offices of Hewitt and Tuttle. "For the rest of his life, he would honor September 26 as 'Job Day'… one is tempted to say that his real life began on the day that he was born again in business." Within a couple years he was the partner in the firm of Clark and Rockefeller and, in 1860, cast his first presidential vote for Lincoln. By the ending of the Civil War Rockefeller was married and part owner of the largest refinery in Cleveland. "From this point forward there would be… a single-minded focus on objectives that would make him both the wonder and terror of American business." To his biographer Ron Chernow, Rockefeller ultimately "succeeded because he believed in the long-term prospects of the business," never only as a boom industry (Titan, 45-96). As issued without dust jacket; without rare original slipcase. This copy is without a non-integral separate letter from a subscriber to fellow-subscribers, sometimes found laid-in. Limitation page inscribed an unidentified hand, indicating this copy is for "Mr. Lewis J. Wood," who is named in the subscribers' listings (5th page from rear), and was then an attorney in the Cleveland firm of Wood, Hitchcock and Morgan.

Interior very fresh, mere trace of edge-wear to corners upper corners of bright gilt boards. A splendid about-fine copy.