John Rockefeller Prentice John Rockefeller Prentice John Rockefeller Prentice (December 17, 1902 – June 13, 1972) was born to Chicago lawyer Ezra Parmalee Prentice and Alta Rockefeller Prentice in New York. Prentice's maternal grandfather is the Standard Oil tycoon, John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937). While attending Yale University, Prentice became a member of the Skull and Bones society and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He graduated in 1928. During his years at Yale, Prentice had accumulated debts and consequently was cut off from his parents. He worked in Boston for a wholesale hardware firm for four years to make enough money to return
Rockefeller University Rockefeller Jr. Greatly elevating the prestige of American science and medicine, it was America's first biomedical institute, like France's Pasteur Institute (1888) and Germany's Robert Koch Institute (1891). The Rockefeller Foundation, a philanthropic organization, founded in 1913, is a separate entity, but had close connections mediated by prominent figures holding dual positions. The first director of laboratories was Simon Flexner, who supervised the development of research capacity at the Institute, whose staff made major discoveries in basic research and medicine. While a student at Johns Hopkins University, Flexner had studied under the Institute's first scientific director, William H. Welch, first