Season 13

A dramatic two-part portrait of the Rockefeller dynasty, a name long synonymous with wealth, unfolds. Part 1 chronicles how John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) harnessed oil (figuratively) in the 1860s and transformed it into a corporate behemoth that the Supreme Court had to break up in 1911. It also examines how he and his son John D. Jr. (1874-1960) lived with that fortune—and the hatred it engendered. The family's strategy: philanthropy. David Ogden Stiers narrates.