Henry H. Rogers
| Henry Huttleston Rogers | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
January 29, 1840 Fairhaven, Massachusetts |
| Died | May 19, 1909 (aged 69) New York City |
| Spouse(s) |
Abigail Palmer Gifford Emelie Augusta Randel Hart |
| Children |
|
Henry Huttleston Rogers (January 29, 1840 – May 19, 1909) was an American industrialist and financier of Yankee descent. He made his fortune in the oil refinery business, becoming a leader at Standard Oil. He played a major role in numerous corporations and business enterprises, in the gas industry, copper, and railroads. His success in the oil industry began in 1866 when he invented the process by which naptha was separated from crude oil, making oil refining possible. John D. Rockefeller bought his business in 1874, and Rogers rose rapidly in Standard Oil. He designed the idea of a very long pipeline for transporting oil, as opposed to using railway cars. The 1880s, he broadened his interests beyond oil to include copper, steel, banking, and railroads, as well as the Consolidated Gas Company that provided coal gas to major cities. By the 1890s, as Rockefeller was withdrawing from the oil business, Rogers was a dominant figure at Standard Oil. In 1899 Rogers set up the Amalgamated Copper trust, based in Butte Montana, that dominated an industry in high demand as the nation needed wire to build its electric networks. His last major enterprise was building the Virginia Railroad to service the West Virginia coal fields. After 1890, he became a prominent philanthropist, as well as a friend and supporter of Mark Twain and Booker T. Washington.
His biographer states:
A strange dualism characterized Rogers. Pitiless in business deals, in his personal affairs he was warm and generous, and at sixty, according to Tarbell, "by all odds, the handsomest and most distinguished figure in Wall Street."...Rogers delighted in outwitting his contemporaries and in exercising power that comes from great wealth. However, he flourished just as the Gilded Age was giving way to the Progressive Era, and therefore his drive to power was frustrated by reforms and changes to more acceptable management styles that the twentieth century was ushering in.
Rogers was born in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, on January 29, 1840. He was the son of Rowland Rogers, a former ship captain, bookkeeper, and grocer, and Mary Eldredge Huttleston Rogers. Both parents were Yankees and were descended from the Pilgrims who arrived in the 17th century aboard the Mayflower. His mother's family had earlier used the spelling "Huddleston" rather than "Huttleston." (Consequently, Henry Rogers' name is often misspelled.)
Except for a brief move to Mattapoisett, Massachusetts during Rogers' early childhood, the family lived in Fairhaven, a fishing village across the Acushnet River from the whaling port of New Bedford. Fairhaven is a small seaside town on the south coast, bordering the Acushnet River to the west and Buzzards Bay to the south. In the mid-1850s, whaling was already an industry in decline in New England. Whale oil was soon replaced by kerosene and natural gas.
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