Winthrop Rockefeller: From New Yorker to Arkansawyer, 1912–1956 by John A. Kirk has been reviewed in the April 2023 issue of the Journal of Southern History.
“John A. Kirk’s detailed biography of Winthrop Rockefeller, the fifth child and fourth son of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abigail Greene Aldrich Rockefeller, sets out to document this future Arkansas governor’s attempts to define himself within one of the richest families in the United States. … in accounting for the twists and turns of Rockefeller’s life leading up to his time in that state, Kirk has provided an excellent examination of this Arkansawyer.”
—Kenneth J. Bindas, Journal of Southern History, April 2023
Why did Winthrop Rockefeller, scion of one of the most powerful families in American history, leave New York for an Arkansas mountaintop in the 1950s? In this richly detailed biography of the former Arkansas governor, John A. Kirk delves into the historical record to fully unravel that mystery for the first time. Kirk pursues clues threaded throughout Rockefeller’s life, tracing his family background, childhood, and education; his rise in the oil industry from roustabout to junior executive; his military service in the Pacific during World War II, including his involvement in the battles of Guam, Leyte, and Okinawa; his postwar work in race relations, health, education, and philanthropy; his marriage to and divorce from Barbara “Bobo” Sears; and the birth of his only child, future Arkansas lieutenant governor Win Paul Rockefeller. This careful examination of Winthrop Rockefeller’s first forty-four years casts a powerful new light on his relationship with his adopted state, where his legacy continues to be felt more than half a century after his governorship.
“The prelude to Winthrop Rockefeller’s rise in Arkansas” – Read an excerpt in the Arkansas Times.
John A. Kirk is the George W. Donaghey Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the author or editor of ten books, including Beyond Little Rock: The Origins and Legacies of the Central High Crisis and Race and Ethnicity in Arkansas: New Perspectives.