In 2009, historian John Kirk found himself as the scholar-in-residence at the Rockefeller Archive Center in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y.
"The RAC is a wonderful place to work for so many reasons, chief among them its beautiful setting, the always professional, knowledgeable and friendly staff, and a large and ever-rotating number of impressive researchers," says Kirk, the George W. Donaghey Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. "This made the RAC not just an archival repository but also a valuable place to share thoughts and ideas.
"I began with the modest goal of examining the relationship between Winthrop Rockefeller and the civil rights movement in Arkansas. What I discovered convinced me to undertake a much larger study."
Kirk was born and educated in the United Kingdom. He taught at the University of Wales and University of London before moving to Little Rock in 2010 to chair UALR's history department.
"The endowed Donaghey professorship provided funding that aided my research," he says. "The move also placed me in the same city as UALR's Center for Arkansas History and Culture, home to the extensive Winthrop Rockefeller Collection. For over a decade, I kept a number of archivists busy with requests for materials."
The result of those years of work is the book "Winthrop Rockefeller: From New Yorker to Arkansawyer, 1912-1956," which was released earlier this year by the University of Arkansas Press.
Rockefeller is my favorite figure in Arkansas history, a man from what was then America's richest family who moved to a poor rural state in 1953. In January 1967, he became the first Republican governor since Reconstruction and spurred the modernization of Arkansas. Rockefeller saved us as a state at the same time we were saving him as an individual.
The late John Ward, who was Rockefeller's public relations director from 1964-71, wrote a book in 1978 titled "The Arkansas Rockefeller." It concentrated on the period from Rockefeller's arrival in Arkansas to his death in 1973. In 2004, the UA Press released Ward's "Winthrop Rockefeller, Philanthropist: A Life of Change," which detailed Rockefeller's charitable efforts.
Kirk's book is the first that explores Rockefeller's early years and the forces that shaped him. Kirk opens with a Rockefeller quote from a visit with Saturday Evening Post writer Joe Alex Morris at Winrock Farms atop Petit Jean Mountain: "This is my show. It doesn't have anything to do with any Rockefeller family project. This is all my own."
Kirk writes: "It was September 1956, and Winthrop was 44 years old. At 6-3 and weighing in at a bulky 225 pounds, he was a commanding presence. He was still handsome, though the creeping signs of middle age were beginning to show in his thinning dark slicked-back hair and receding hairline. Soft brown eyes hinted at an underlying shyness, contrasting with this more genial, carefree and outgoing demeanor.
"Winthrop's aquiline nose was unmistakably inherited from his mother's Aldrich side of the family. Full and shapely lips formed a big, cheery, welcoming smile to guests, which revealed tobacco-stained teeth, a product of the strong-tasting unfiltered Picayune cigarettes he liked to habitually smoke. Winthrop's work shirt and khakis were standard issue. When he was out working on the farm, he liked to blend in with everyone else."
Like so many Arkansans, my family made the trip to Petit Jean to check out the ranch. It was a point of pride that a Rockefeller had chosen to live among us.
"The WR trademark was visible everywhere around Winthrop's various enterprises," Kirk writes. "It took pride of place above the corrals at Winrock Farms, and it was seared into the hides of his 400 cherry-red Santa Gertrudis cattle herd purchased from the King Ranch in Texas, including his $31,000 (equivalent to about $297,000 in 2020 dollars) showpiece bull called Rock.
"Winrock Farms had fast become one of Arkansas' top tourist attractions. It was located just outside the town of Morrilton and some 65 miles northwest of the state capital of Little Rock. More than 60,000 people traveled from near and far to stare in wonderment at the miracle that had occurred on Petit Jean Mountain."
From 1953-56, Rockefeller spent almost $2 million to create a showplace. It was a sight to behold for residents of one of the poorest states in the country.
"Winthrop had transformed the scrub and woodland into a model cattle-breeding operation," Kirk writes. "After an initial purchase of a 927-acre tract, Winrock Farms had grown to 2,400 acres split between the top of the mountain and the valley below. Everyone told Winthrop that it was far more sensible to build Winrock Farms entirely down in the valley, right next to the water supply that it needed to operate. But the view was better from the mountaintop, and Winthrop's ever ebullient enthusiasm never stopped him from believing that any obstacle could be overcome.
"Engineers devised a system that included constructing four lakes, a riverside pumping station, a 25-gallons-a-minute filter plant, auxiliary power plants, three miles of underground waterlines and two miles of portable aluminum sprinkler pipes to defy the received wisdom and keep the green grazing pastures on the summit irrigated. Over 350,000 tons of rock was shifted for fill or retaining walls. Another 50,000 tons was crushed to build roads to make the farm accessible."
What was this New Yorker trying to prove in Arkansas?
"It was Winthrop's secular version of a city on a hill that his namesake, Puritan John Winthrop the elder, would surely have been proud of," Kirk writes. "John Winthrop the elder told his flock, as they headed to the Americas from England to found Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, that their new home would be a spiritual 'city upon a hill,' and he warned them that 'the eyes of all the people are upon us.' In Winthrop Rockefeller's case, it was the eyes of the rest of the Rockefeller family that were upon him."
Kirk says Rockefeller failed to meet family expectations three times. The first time was due to a mediocre academic record that saw him leave Yale without a degree. Redemption came in the oil fields of the American Southwest.
The second was his unsuccessful business and civic career in New York prior to World War II. Redemption came with military service during the war.
The third was his social life after the war and brief marriage to actress and divorcee Bobo Sears.
"Within 18 months, the couple separated, and protracted and acrimonious divorce proceedings followed," Kirk writes. "The sensationalist headlines alarmed the private and secretive Rockefellers. Winthrop and Bobo eventually arrived at a divorce settlement in 1954. By then, Winthrop had moved to Arkansas. The failure of his marriage prompted a good deal of soul-searching and reflection.
"For the third time in his life, Winthrop sought redemption. But this time, it was different. He craved a more permanent fix, rather than just a temporary escape. It was, he decided, time to finally take his destiny into his own hands and to define his own place in the Rockefeller family firmament. To do this, he once again returned to the field."
It wasn't an oil field or battlefield this time. It was rural Arkansas.
"Whereas his brothers were contented pen-pushers with office jobs, happily pulling the strings and making decisions behind their desks at major organizations, Winthrop had always craved to work with his hands, to deal with practical matters, to grapple with issues face-to-face on a daily basis, and to constantly interact with and shape the environment around him," Kirk writes.
"He lived his life, metaphorically and often quite literally, in the field, with his boots planted firmly on the ground. ... In Arkansas, Winthrop found a place where he could continue to sow the seeds of the Rockefeller legacy, but one that would also allow him to grow them in his own independent and distinctive way."
Rex Nelson is a senior editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.