A band of pirates on a beach gather around their booty of treasure chest and bags of gold coins. Among the pirates are John D. Rockefeller and John D. Rockefeller Jr., Henry Huttleston Rogers, Henry Morrison Flagler, and Frank Rockefeller and William Rockefeller, two brothers of John D. The pirate ship labeled “Standard Oil” is anchored just off shore. Another ship burns in the distance. All these “pirates” were executives of Standard Oil, or connected to J. D. Rockefeller. Ida Tarbell’s muckraking book The History of the Standard Oil Companyrecently had been published, and the nation was interested, and scandalized, by the doings of the Rockefellers.
comments and context
Comments and Context
The depictions of financial titans by Udo J. Keppler in Puck magazine grew increasingly mordant through 1906. It was the fever-pitch time of the Muckraking movement, and Keppler surely was enlivened by the serialized History of the Standard Oil Company by Ida Tarbell in McClure’s magazine (and the best-selling book, published in 1905). The nefarious doings of the Rockefellers had the nation talking.
