Character sketch of mr Henry H Rogers in story of my life????
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Henry Huttleston Rogers ( January 29, 1840 – May 19, 1909) was a United States capitalist, businessman, industrialist, financier, and philanthropist.
During the Gilded Age, in the spirit of Horatio Alger, "Hen" Rogers, a child of working-class parents, amassed a fortune such that he was listed in a 1996 study as one of the 25 all-time most wealthy individuals in United States history. He was one of the key men in John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust, and made many investments of his own in copper, steel, natural gas, coal, and railroad industries.
His final business achievement, working with partner William Nelson Page, was the building of the Virginian Railway (VGN) from the coal fields of southern West Virginia to port near Norfolk at Sewell's Point, Virginia, in the harbour of Hampton Roads. For many years, it was labeled both an engineering marvel and the "richest little railroad in the world," forming part of today's rail network for Norfolk Southern.
While considered ruthless in business matters, Henry Rogers also had a much kinder and generous side. His hometown of Fairhaven, Massachusetts continues to enjoy his many infrastructure gifts. Rogers' late life friendships included such diverse persons as Mark Twain, Ida Tarbell, Helen Keller, and Booker T. Washington.
Rogers was a low-profile philanthropist with a widely hated public image as a robber baron. It was only after his death in 1909 that Dr. Washington felt he could publicly reveal that, over a period of more than 15 years, Henry Rogers had been funding over 65 small country schools and several larger institutions in the South for the betterment and education of African Americans. Dr. Washington not only credited Rogers with substantial aid and encouragement, but with instituting the then-innovative procedure of matching funds. Rogers felt that as well as extending the financial reach, their participation contributed to the beneficiaries' self-esteem and steps to self-sufficiency.