Newsreel: After spanning almost a century of eventful life, John D. Rockefeller Sr. dies in his 98th year. Kindliness and simplicity marked the latter years of this American oil magnate. Although the methods of his business career had been regarded as ruthless, the bulk of his fabulous fortune he distributed, and a mere 5 million pounds is the estimate of his private estate at the time of his death.
Kellams: We're going back a ways to start this Pryor Center profile.
Dixon: Well, we went way back, probably a little too far back. But that was a newsreel from 1937 on the death of one of the richest men in the world, oil magnate John D. Rockefeller. Everybody's heard of John D. Rockefeller. And this week we're going to look at a member of that legendary family, Winthrop Rockefeller, because he happened to be the 37th governor of Arkansas. And that's the series that we're doing now.
Kellams: Yes, the series of profiling the modern era governors of Arkansas. You are Randy Dixon with the David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas...
Dixon: Howdy.
Kellams: Howdy. Arkansas Oral and Visual History. I'm Kyle Kellams. Here we go with Winrock.
Dixon: Well, Winthrop Rockefeller came from the richest family in the country, hands down, one of the richest in the world. And he came to Arkansas, ended up being the governor. Now, I wanted to do this into two parts. If that's OK.
Kellams: That's fine.
Dixon: One, to either remind people or tell people who this guy was and how he wound up in Arkansas. Remember the campaign films that we've heard in some of our segments? He had one. And believe it or not, I think it's the same announcer who voiced the Sid McMath. Remember that?
Kellams: Oh, yes, I do. Yes.
Dixon: Yeah. Well, this is one. And it was sort of an introduction film about Rockefeller, so he could be introduced to the people of Arkansas. He was an outsider. He was from New York, a Yankee. He came here in the '50s.
Kellams: Yeah.
Dixon: So let's hear a little bit of this. This is when he was running for governor. But this gives a little background on exactly what kind of family he came from.
Campaign film: His mother was Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, his father, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Win was the fourth boy. Their world is distant now in more ways than time. They were a close family and a strict one. Each of the children had chores to do. They landscaped the grounds, built roads, earned small salaries, kept accounts. The values of their world were duty, responsibility, thrift, work, purpose, service. The watchwords of the American past.
Kellams: And as you mentioned, he's running for governor of Arkansas, a state that then and I think now still is incredibly suspicious of “outsiders.”
Dixon: Oh, absolutely. So he really did need to introduce himself to the people of Arkansas and try to relate or have the people of Arkansas be able to relate to him. Now for this segment, we wanted to talk to an expert on Winthrop Rockefeller. And that person, hands down, is Dr. John Kirk.
Kellams: Yup.
Dixon: You know who he is?
Kellams: Oh, yeah. I've interviewed him a couple of times.
Dixon: Right? Yeah. He's the George W. Donaghey Distinguished Professor of History, and he's down at University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He's written a book called "Winthrop Rockefeller: From New York to Arkansas," which covers the period between 1912 when he was born, and 1956 when he moved here. Here's what Dr. Kirk said about the Rockefeller family.
Kirk: Rockefeller dominated the oil industry and was seen as one of the titans of industry, or as they were pejoratively known in the progressive era, when the robber barons, who were the great people of industry at the time. The Rockefellers had the oil, Carnegie had steel, the Morgans had the railroads. So they were really the titans of industry. And were looked upon in that era, the so-called Gilded Age, as, well, in one sense, titans of industry, but also pilloried for having so much money and holding that kind of wealth too.
And I think that the next generation with John D. Rockefeller Jr. were very conscious of that and developed their family's interest in philanthropy. And of course, his father did as well, gave away a lot of his fortune before his death. But John Jr. kind of really carried on with that philanthropy and set up that. And of course, John the Third became head of the Rockefeller Foundation. So there was a kind of move in the family through those generations, from the robber barons to the prodigious philanthropists that they became probably more known for during the course of the 20th century.
Kellams: And again, the name Rockefeller. I mean, it still is. But then mid-century was, oh, gosh, just a house...
Dixon: Yeah. Well, he was ranked up with the titans of the country.
Kellams: Well, I mean, it would be a throwaway line in a movie. Well, he's no Rockefeller.
Dixon: Exactly. It was used constantly and everybody got it right. Now, John Rockefeller Jr., who was Winthrop's father, had six children. The oldest was a daughter. And then he had five sons. Winthrop was the fourth of those five sons. And Dr. Kirk here talks about how he sort of placed in the family hierarchy.
Kirk: I guess John, his eldest brother, was the sort of heir to the family name, John the Third. And then the next one was Nelson, who of course became governor of New York. And was kind of competitive with John for the kind of title of firstborn and always had something to prove.
Then there was Laurance, who was third, and then Winthrop was the fourth son and occupied a kind of ambiguous sort of fourth place in the pecking order. Not quite the baby, which was David who came after him, who went on to become a CEO of Chase Bank in Manhattan. So he kind of grew up in this fourth child, fifth child, fourth boy place, not along the kind of higher ranking or elder members of the group, and kind of not the baby either. So in that indeterminate middle, which always kind of made him search and struggle for a place of exactly where he stood in that mixture of the family siblings.
Kellams: Now, what I don't know is were these children of John Rockefeller Jr., were they household names? Did people know who they were?
Dixon: Some of them.
Kellams: OK.
Dixon: I would think Winthrop not outside of Arkansas, but then there was John, John the Third, who, as you hear, moved on and ran the company. Right. And so all of the sons, of course. Nelson.
Kellams: Well, yes, yes.
Dixon: He was, he was a national figure.
Kellams: Became vice president.
Dixon: Yes, yes. And was governor of New York. As a youngster, well, he was known as Win, so we'll just call him Win throughout, attended the prestigious Loomis Chaffee prep school. And then, well, one of his professors, George Savage, was actually interviewed in the mid-'60s. Got this out of the archives. And he talks about a young Winthrop Rockefeller.
Savage: Well, of course, my first connection was when I was in the fall of 1928, when he came here as a student. And I was just a new master, just fresh out of college. And when he arrived at Loomis, he went out for the soccer team. He wasn't awfully good, but he kept at it. And finally, by his senior year he had won a place on the first team and won his school letter in the sport. He was a popular student, respected because of his energy and what he was doing. He was a simple, unassuming, just a regular guy. And he would walk around the campus and you wouldn't know he was a Rockefeller.
Kellams: Now there's an interesting development in Winthrop Rockefeller there.
Dixon: There are many.
Kellams: This is one of many.
Dixon: Yes, but there's one. And I've talked to John Kirk about this, that really sort of shaped him.
Kellams: Oh, absolutely. Made him certainly more grounded.
Dixon: Right. So he leaves Loomis Chaffee and goes to Yale. He was a horrible student. Lasted a year. And I think Dr. Kirk told me he was actually there for more than a year, but really only went for a year. And he saw the writing on the wall and just decided to quit. And what he did, well, he went into the family business, but in a really remarkable way. He worked not as an executive, but as a laborer out in the oil fields.
Campaign film: Win went on to Yale for a year, but then decided to go where he could learn the oil business firsthand down in the Texas oil fields. He was the Rockefeller who was learning and making his own judgments, finding his own way. He was a roughneck and roustabout, digging the holes and handling the tools. The others had heard the name Rockefeller, but could he do a day's work? He made 85 cents an hour, spent his evenings in $4-a-week boarding houses, learned to live on Texas chili that was mostly beans, and stayed for three years.
Rockefeller: One of the boys turned to me and he said, Rock, could I give you a little good advice, and I said I'd be grateful for any good advice that I could get. I said, this is my first day as a roughneck. I've been roustabout, but there's a lot new to learn here. He said, the best advice I can give you is to remember that anything you pick up on a drilling rig, if you drop it and it falls on you, it'll crush you. It was advice that I heeded, and I'm happy to say that as I got more dexterous, I never was hurt in my oilfield experience.
Dixon: So in case you're wondering, the difference between a roustabout and a roughneck...
Kellams: Please.
Dixon: Yes, a roustabout is just sort of an entry level worker who handles just maintenance and cleaning. But a roughneck is semi-skilled part of the crew and does the actual drilling. So that's what he did. And he did it for three years.
Kellams: Wow.
Dixon: Yeah, that's pretty amazing. Then he made another surprising move. He enlisted in the army as a private. I mean, talk about. I mean, he picked the low rung again to… I don't know, prove himself or just decide he was going to work his way up. He was going to be a regular person. Like his professor said, you would never have guessed he was a Rockefeller. He was very unassuming.
Kellams: Right.
Dixon: But he joined the army before World War II even started, or before America entered the war. He went to OCS, officer training school or officer candidate school, and he was sent to the South Pacific as a lieutenant colonel. And there was a kamikaze attack that really changed Win's life.
Campaign film: The principle of kamikaze warfare was that one man flying a suicide plane could slay a thousand. Their slogan was one man, one ship. Some would get through the screens of fire. Rockefeller was on the Henrico, off the Kerama Retto, south of Okinawa. While others battled off the attacks, bombs from a kamikaze hit his ship. Seventy-five men died, including the commanding officer. Win Rockefeller was the senior officer alive and burned about the shoulders and face, he could walk and he took command. They would award him a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star with oak leaf cluster. He was the Rockefeller who learned in different schools and was finding his own way.
Kellams: He certainly is bucking what we tend to think of a third or fourth generation ultra rich heir.
Dixon: Well, I guess now you call them a trust fund baby. Well, he was the Rockefeller that didn't mind getting his hands dirty. I just find it amazing that he decided to, rather than take the easy route, he took the hard route. And I think most of the decisions of his life.
After the war, he seemed to settle down a little and return to New York with his family. And, for example, as one of the acts of philanthropy, Win's father had Colonial Williamsburg restored and renovated and developed a private foundation to continue developing what they called a living history museum. And Winthrop Rockefeller was the chair.
Campaign film: As chairman of the board of Colonial Williamsburg. He was host to Queen Elizabeth when she visited the old Virginia city that his family had restored. He was host when President Eisenhower came, and there was one moment which recalled the years of wartime, a moment shared with one of the great men of the century. In Drapers' Hall in London, a salute across time.
Rockefeller: The first Williamsburg Award should be made to Sir Winston Churchill. No man has given more to that cause than Sir Winston. Sir Winston, I am honored to present to you, in the presence of this distinguished audience, the first Williamsburg Award. The symbol of it is a town crier's bell. To you, sir.
Churchill: Mr. Winthrop Rockefeller, you have presented to me a town crier's bell. Its silver tone is gentle, and I shall ring it, I can assure you, whenever I feel there is duty to be done.
Dixon: In 1948, Rockefeller married actress and model Eva Sears in Florida. She was a high society, high profile person, which of course made the marriage high profile. It made all the newsreels and was the talk of the nation, even the world. It was on BBC newsreels and things like that. They did produce one son, Win Paul, who became lieutenant governor of Arkansas.
Kellams: Yes. Winthrop Paul Rockefeller.
Dixon: And then they separated in 1950.
Kellams: Right.
Dixon: And finally had a heavily publicized divorce in 1954. It was that year that Win decided to move to Arkansas. And this is a crazy interview I found in the archives. And I'll... Yeah, yeah, you have a look on your face. Like, how, what the heck?
Kellams: These are worlds colliding here.
Dixon: Yes. So this is an interview with Chet Lauck. And if you don't know who he is, he was Lum of Lum and Abner on the radio, and he occasionally did things for Channel 7 on camera or interviews. And so this is an interview with Chet Lauck, standing on a bluff overlooking the Arkansas River Valley with Winthrop Rockefeller. This was done in the mid-'60s, but he asked him why he moved to Arkansas.
Lauck: You came to Arkansas back in 1954. Why did you select Arkansas as your new home?
Rockefeller: Well, it was really one of those flukes. I'd invited my good friend, the late Frank Newell, who was in the service with me, to come to New York and form an association with me there in business, and he said that he thought he'd prefer to stay in Arkansas, and I decided to leave New York because I didn't like the big city anymore as a place to live. He insisted that I come and take a look at Arkansas as a place to live. And so I came with an open mind. I liked what I saw. I stayed and planned to stay the rest of my days.
Kellams: Chet Lauck interviewing.
Dixon: Isn't that crazy? Who'd have thought.
Kellams: By the time this interview... That's what's amazing about this KATV archives. Just as a side, by the time this interview happened, Lum and Abner were probably no longer a thing on the radio.
Dixon: No. So he was doing other gigs like Channel 7, right? Yeah. But I also wanted to get Dr. Kirk to kind of weigh in on the subject of what he had come to know in his research on why Rockefeller came to Arkansas.
Kellams: Right.
Kirk: I think often mistakenly, it's thought because of his marriage and his divorce from Bobo Rockefeller. And the many times the idea came up that he moved to Arkansas for a quick divorce. In fact, it was more complicated than that. Certainly his breakup had a role to play, and that was the push factor that made him leave New York because he was undergoing a messy divorce. That was in all the tabloid newspapers.
But really, what pulled him to Arkansas was his friend, Frank Newell, who was a Little Rock insurance man and who had known in his army service, who served with him praying with him in the military here and met him several times and served with him overseas too. So they became really good friends with Frank Newell. And he wanted to leave New York, but he could have gone pretty much anywhere he wanted in the world with the resources at his disposal. But he was persuaded to join his friend Frank in Arkansas.
And it was Frank Newell who took him up to Petit Jean Mountain, which is where Frank took his family for picnics and one of his favorite spots. And he thought his friend would like it. And of course, Winthrop fell in love with Petit Jean and ended up buying a large tract of land atop there. And that's where he built his Winrock Farms.
Dixon: Which is one thing I wanted to mention. I have always heard, since I was a kid, descriptions of Winthrop Rockefeller as the black sheep of the Rockefeller family, that he may have even, I guess you'd say, banished himself to Arkansas.
Kellams: Or sought refuge in the backwoods.
Dixon: Exactly. And Dr. Kirk says, not true.
Kirk: I don't think so. I mean, I argue against that in my book, and I think it's not quite that simple. He was, he took a different route to a lot of the brothers in terms of basing his life away from the East Coast and taking on a different role. But really, they all had their own different sorts of paths and they all carved out their own individual sort of interests.
And Winthrop was the one who sort of moved away and was in Arkansas, but of course, he followed his brother Nelson as governor. Nelson was governor of New York while Winthrop was governor of Arkansas. So there were some connections and overlap, too. But I think the black sheep is kind of overplayed a little bit. I think it's a more complicated story than that.
Kellams: Incredibly interesting life up to Arkansas. But his four years as governor equally interesting.
Dixon: Well and also interesting of how he even got into politics. But yeah, that's going to be next week.
Kellams: Yes. Now I don't know of any songs about Winthrop Rockefeller.
Dixon: You don't? Well, there might be a campaign song.
Kellams: I bet you've got it with you.
Dixon: I had to get in a musical show cause I am so sorry.
Kellams: No, this has now become so interesting to me. When I see what we're going to be talking about, like, all right, let's see what music Randy can attach to it.
Dixon: And this one works well.
Kellams: Now it's a challenge. Yeah. All right. So we'll close with this jingle.
Dixon: And this is for when he ran for governor the first time. But that's what we'll get into next week.
Kellams: All right. Randy Dixon is with the David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral History. Thank you, Randy.
Dixon: Thank you. I'll see you next week.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
