Winthrop Rockefeller

Rockefeller speaking at dinner. On verso: LL.D. 1957. Rockefeller.Winthrop Rockefeller (1912-1973), American politician and philanthropist, was the 37th Governor of Arkansas, 1967-1971. He attended Yale University, and left during his junior year to work on a drilling crew as a roughneck in Texas, earning minimum wage, then in 1937 he began working in his family's companies. In 1941 he joined the Army where he completed Officer Candidate School, and went on to fight as an infantry commander in the Pacific. He was awarded a Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Clusters and a Purple Heart for his actions during the invasion of Okinawa. His military actions are honored in the Infantry Officer Hall of Fame at Fort Benning, Georgia. After serving in the military, he became involved in politics, and in 1955, Governor Orval Faubus appointed him to be head of the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission, and during his nine years there, nearly 600 new industries came to Arkansas, providing 90,000 jobs and paying $270 million annually. In 1967 he became Governor of Arkansas, and was determined to bring economic, cultural, and political change to the state, was dedicated to improving the quality of life in Arkansas and spent much of his personal fortune in Arkansas. The Winthrop Rockefeller Institute of the University of Arkansas System was established in 2005 with a grant from the Winthrop Rockefeller Charitable Trust and was built on Petit Jean Mountain near Morrilton, Arkansas, on the original grounds of Rockefeller's model cattle farm