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.

This biography by John Ward, a former member of Rockefeller's staff and director of his 1968 reelection campaign, presents the story of the first Rockefeller ever to live south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Winthrop Rockefeller was a man whose determination to build a viable two-party system in Arkansas and the South was matched only by his vast resources for doing so. Moreover, the book is a portrait of a man who lived his life openly, whose every success and every failure was a matter of public record for the two million citizens of his adopted state. Winthrop Rockefeller was a remarkable man, and in 1953, he chose to make Arkansas his home. Through his leadership and philanthropy, he transformed the state's politics, economy, culture, and education for the better. The legacy of Governor Rockefeller continues today through the work at the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute.

When Winthrop Rockefeller was elected governor of Arkansas in 1966, he became the first Republican to hold the governor's office since Reconstruction. Cathy Kunzinger Urwin examines Rockefeller's tenure by looking beyond his immediate successes and failures to the broader, dramatic changes that marked the era. Rockefeller helped break up the political machines that had controlled Arkansas politics for almost a hundred years, made lasting contributions in the areas of prison reform and civil rights, and obliged the Democratic Party to find Dale Bumpers, a young, bright, progressive gubernatorial candidate to oppose him in 1970.

The story of the year (1967-8) during which penologist Murton tried to bring true prison reform to Arkansas. It was a year of hope and progress, disappointment and frustration, as Murton realized that reforming prisons in Arkansas meant shaking up the whole rotten system, from Governor Winthrop Rockefeller to the judiciary to the Arkansas housewife.

Since its first edition in 1988, The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act has become the standard reference for the bench, the bar, and journalists for guidance in interpreting and applying the state’s open-government law. This sixth edition, published fifty years after the passage of the Act in 1967, builds upon its predecessors, incorporating later legislative enactments, judicial decisions, and Attorney General’s opinions to present a synthesis of the law of access to public records and meetings in Arkansas.

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.

Based on extensive archival work, private paper collections, and oral history, this book includes eight of John Kirk’s essays, two of which have never been published before. Together, these essays locate the dramatic events of the crisis within the larger story of the African American struggle for freedom and equality in Arkansas. Examining key episodes in state history from before the New Deal to the present, Kirk covers a wide range of topics that include the historiography of the school crisis; the impact of the New Deal; early African American politics and mass mobilization; race, gender, and the civil rights movement; the role of white liberals in the struggle; and the intersections of race and city planning policy. Kirk unearths many previously neglected individuals, organizations, and episodes, and provides a thought-provoking analytical framework for understanding them.