Frederick Taylor Gates
Encyclopedia
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
clergyman, educator, and the principal business and philanthropic advisor to the major oil industrialist and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller
John Davison Rockefeller was an American oil industrialist, investor, and philanthropist. He was the founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of...
(Senior), from 1891 to 1923.
Early life
The son of a Baptist minister, he was born at MaineMaine, New York
Maine is a town in Broome County, New York, United States. The population was 5,459 at the 2000 census.The Town of Maine is on the western border of the county and is northwest of Binghamton.Maine is home to the Greater Binghamton Airport...
, Broome County, New York
Broome County, New York
Broome County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 200,600. It was named in honor of John Broome, who was lieutenant governor in 1806 when Broome County was established. Its county seat is Binghamton, which is also its major city. The current...
, graduated from the University of Rochester
University of Rochester
The University of Rochester is a private, nonsectarian, research university in Rochester, New York, United States. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The university has six schools and various interdisciplinary programs.The...
in 1877, and from the Rochester Theological Seminary in 1880. From 1880 to 1888 he served as pastor of the Central Baptist Church in Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
. He left the ministry and was appointed the secretary of the newly formed American Baptist Education Society, where he championed a Baptist university in Chicago to fill a void that existed in Baptist education.
Rockefeller adviser
On January 21, 1889 Gates met the lifetime Baptist Rockefeller Senior. He proved to be central to the suggestion and subsequent design of the funding plans for the creation by Senior of the Baptist University of ChicagoUniversity of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
; he subsequently served for many years as a trustee on its board.
Standard Oil
Gates then became Rockefeller's key philanthropic and business adviser, working in the newly established family officeFamily office
A family office is a private company that manages investments and trusts for a single wealthy family. The company's financial capital is the family's own wealth, often accumulated over many family generations. Traditional family offices provide personal services such as managing household staff and...
in Standard Oil
Standard Oil
Standard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational...
headquarters at 26 Broadway
26 Broadway
26 Broadway is a 31-story, 159 m, 520 ft New York City Designated Landmark at the southern tip of Manhattan at Bowling Green...
, where he oversaw Rockefeller's investments in a series of investments in many companies, but not in his personal stock in the Standard Oil Trust.
From 1892 onwards, faced with his ever expanding investments and real estate holdings, Senior crucially recognized the need for professional advice and so he formed a four-member committee, later including his son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
John Davison Rockefeller, Jr. was a major philanthropist and a pivotal member of the prominent Rockefeller family. He was the sole son among the five children of businessman and Standard Oil industrialist John D. Rockefeller and the father of the five famous Rockefeller brothers...
, to manage his money, and nominated Gates as its head and as his senior business adviser. In this capacity Gates steered Rockefeller money predominantly to syndicates arranged by the investment house of Kuhn, Loeb & Co.
Kuhn, Loeb & Co.
Kuhn, Loeb & Co. was a bulge bracket, investment bank founded in 1867 by Abraham Kuhn and Solomon Loeb. Under the leadership of Jacob H. Schiff, it grew to be one of the most influential investment banks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, financing America's expanding railways and growth...
, and, to a lesser extent, the house of J. P. Morgan
J. P. Morgan
John Pierpont Morgan was an American financier, banker and art collector who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation during his time. In 1892 Morgan arranged the merger of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric...
.
Other roles
Gates served on the boards of many companies in which Rockefeller had a majority shareholding; Rockefeller at that time held a securities portfolio of unprecedented size for a private individual. Although Gates is recognized today as a philanthropic advisor, in fact Rockefeller himself regarded him as the greatest businessman he had encountered in his life, skipping such prominent figures of the time as Henry FordHenry Ford
Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...
and Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and entrepreneur who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century...
.
When he ceased being a business advisor to Rockefeller in 1912, he continued to advise him and his son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
John Davison Rockefeller, Jr. was a major philanthropist and a pivotal member of the prominent Rockefeller family. He was the sole son among the five children of businessman and Standard Oil industrialist John D. Rockefeller and the father of the five famous Rockefeller brothers...
, on philanthropic matters, at the same time serving on many corporate boards. He also served as president of the General Education Board
General Education Board
The General Education Board was a philanthropy created by John D. Rockefeller and Frederick T. Gates in 1902. Rockefeller gave it $180 million, which was used primarily to support higher education and medical schools in the United States, and to help rural white and black schools in the South, as...
, which was subsequently merged into other Rockefeller family
Rockefeller family
The Rockefeller family , the Cleveland family of John D. Rockefeller and his brother William Rockefeller , is an American industrial, banking, and political family of German origin that made one of the world's largest private fortunes in the oil business during the late 19th and early 20th...
institutions.
Philanthropy
Gates focused exclusively on philanthropy after 1912. He moved Rockefeller from doling out retail sums to specific recipients to the wholesale process of setting up well-funded foundations that were run by experts who decided what topics of reform were ripe. In all Gates supervised the distribution of about a half-billion dollars. Although Rockefeller himself believed in folk medicine, the billionaire listened to his experts, and Gates convinced him that he could have the greatest impact by modernizing medicine—especially by reforming education, sponsoring research to identify cures, and systematically eradicating debilitating diseases that sapped national efficiency, like hookworm.In 1901 Gates designed the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University
Rockefeller University
The Rockefeller University is a private university offering postgraduate and postdoctoral education. It has a strong concentration in the biological sciences. It is also known for producing numerous Nobel laureates...
), of which he was board president. He then designed the Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...
, becoming a trustee upon its creation in 1913. Gates served as president of the General Education Board
General Education Board
The General Education Board was a philanthropy created by John D. Rockefeller and Frederick T. Gates in 1902. Rockefeller gave it $180 million, which was used primarily to support higher education and medical schools in the United States, and to help rural white and black schools in the South, as...
, which became the leading foundation in the field of education.
By 1912, however, John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
John Davison Rockefeller, Jr. was a major philanthropist and a pivotal member of the prominent Rockefeller family. He was the sole son among the five children of businessman and Standard Oil industrialist John D. Rockefeller and the father of the five famous Rockefeller brothers...
was taking control of philanthropic policies, with Gates slipping to second place. Although Gates never quite lost his religion, he began shifting the direction from religious charities to decidedly more secular pursuits like medical research and education. Gates designed the China Medical Board
China Medical Board
The China Medical Board of New York is a nonprofit organization that promotes health education and research in the medical universities of China.-History:...
(CMB) in 1914. Rather than viewing China through the traditional missionary lens of millions of heathens to be converted, Gates placed his faith in science. He complained the missionaries in China were trapped in the "bondage of tradition and an ignorance and misguided sentiment in the supporting churches." They had made few converts and fumbled the opportunity to spread Western science. There were hundreds of medical missionaries but they linked Western medical "miracles" to the teachings of Christianity. Instead of focusing on preventive health they urged sick and dying patients to convert. Gates planned to take over the Peking Union Medical College and retrain missionaries there. Working at the intersection of philanthropy, imperialism, big business, religion, and science, the China Medical Board
China Medical Board
The China Medical Board of New York is a nonprofit organization that promotes health education and research in the medical universities of China.-History:...
was his last major project. Like Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and entrepreneur who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century...
who offered pensions to retired professors if colleges would drop their religious affiliations, Gates proposed using Rockefeller money to make disturbing changes.
In 1924 Gates overreached, asking the Rockefeller Foundation Board to invest $265 million in the China Medical Board. The fantastic sum would make Chinese medical care the finest in the world, and would eliminate denominationalism influence from the practice of medicine and charity work in China. The Board refused and Gates became a victim of his own progressive emphasis on the "rule of experts;" the experts on China and medicine disagreed with him, he was marginalized and resignation from the CMB.
Gates was a progressive and committed to the Efficiency Movement
Efficiency Movement
The Efficiency Movement was a major movement in the United States, Britain and other industrial nations in the early 20th century that sought to identify and eliminate waste in all areas of the economy and society, and to develop and implement best practices. The concept covered mechanical,...
. He looked for leverage whereby a few millions of dollars would generate significant changes, as in the creation of a new university, the eradication of hookworm because it reduced efficiency, or the revolution in hospitals caused by the Flexner Report
Flexner Report
The Flexner Report is a book-length study of medical education in the United States and Canada, written by the professional educator Abraham Flexner and published in 1910 under the aegis of the Carnegie Foundation...
.
See also
- Rockefeller familyRockefeller familyThe Rockefeller family , the Cleveland family of John D. Rockefeller and his brother William Rockefeller , is an American industrial, banking, and political family of German origin that made one of the world's largest private fortunes in the oil business during the late 19th and early 20th...
- Rockefeller FoundationRockefeller FoundationThe Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...
- John D. RockefellerJohn D. RockefellerJohn Davison Rockefeller was an American oil industrialist, investor, and philanthropist. He was the founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of...
- John D. Rockefeller, Jr.John D. Rockefeller, Jr.John Davison Rockefeller, Jr. was a major philanthropist and a pivotal member of the prominent Rockefeller family. He was the sole son among the five children of businessman and Standard Oil industrialist John D. Rockefeller and the father of the five famous Rockefeller brothers...