John Davison Rockefeller III (March 21, 1906 – July 10, 1978) was an American philanthropist. Rockefeller was the eldest son and second child of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller as well as a grandson of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller. He was engaged in a wide range of philanthropic projects, many of which his family had launched, as well as supporting organizations related to East Asian affairs. Rockefeller was also a major supporter of the Population Council, and the committee that created the Lincoln Center in Manhattan.
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Early life
On March 21, 1906, John Davison Rockefeller III was born in New York City, New York. His parents were John Davison Rockefeller Jr. (1874–1960) and Abigail Greene "Abby" Aldrich (1874–1948), philanthropists. He had four younger brothers, Nelson, Winthrop, Laurance and David, and an elder sister, Abby. Through his father, he was a grandson of Standard Oil co-founder John Davison Rockefeller Sr. and schoolteacher Laura Celestia "Cettie" Spelman. Through his mother, he was a grandson of Senator Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich and Abigail Pearce Truman "Abby" Chapman.
He received his preparatory education at the Browning School in New York City and the Loomis Chaffee School, Windsor, Connecticut, in 1925. He went to Princeton University where he received high honors in economics and graduated in 1929 with the degree of Bachelor of Science, choosing industrial relations as the subject of his senior thesis. His interest in industrial relations stemmed from the family's role in the Ludlow Massacre, in which strikebreakers and security guards killed women and children of miners striking against the Rockefeller-controlled Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. Rockefeller's father worked to restore the family's public reputation by championing industrial relations and the work of William Lyon Mackenzie King, a pioneer in the field.
Commencing a lifelong commitment to international relations, he undertook a world tour after graduating from college, which concluded with assignments for the Institute of Pacific Relations conference in Japan.
Institutional positions/activities
John III was the next Rockefeller manager for all family undertakings of social relevance. Since 1929, in total he sat on twenty boards of various institutions, most of which were family-related. The more notable of these were:
Rockefeller University – then the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (established by Senior);
Colonial Williamsburg (John Jr., Abby);
Riverside Church (John Jr.);
International House of New York (John Jr.);
General Education Board – later the International Education Board (Senior);
China Medical Board (John Sr., John Jr.);
Bureau of Social Hygiene (John Jr.);
Industrial Relations Counselors (John Jr.).
John III was at one time a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Foreign Policy Association and the Institute of Pacific Relations, as well as being on the board of directors of Princeton University. In late 1950, he accompanied secretary of state John Foster Dulles and Douglas MacArthur on a trip to Japan to conclude a peace treaty, during which time he consulted with many Japanese leaders in practically every important sphere of that country's life.
He was a prominent third-generation family philanthropist in his own right and founder of the Asia Society, the major institution he established in 1956 to foster greater cooperation between Asia and the United States. He also founded the Population Council in 1952, and a reconstituted Japan Society. In addition, he set up the United Negro College Fund for the ongoing education of African Americans, carrying on the family tradition in this area with his grandfather's funding of the education of black women at Spelman College in Atlanta.
Posthumous honors
Rockefeller College at Princeton University was named in his honor in 1982.
The John D. Rockefeller III National Tournament of Elementary School State Champions, an annual national-championship chess tournament run by US Chess, was named in his honor in 2020.
Personal life
On November 11, 1932, he married the socially connected Blanchette Ferry Hooker (1909–1992), who was to serve as chairman of the Asian Cultural Council from 1980 to 1990, and who established the Blanchette H. Rockefeller Fellowship Fund, in Japan. They had one son and three daughters:
Sandra Ferry Rockefeller (1935–2024)
John Davison "Jay" Rockefeller IV – a former U.S. Senator from West Virginia and a former two-term governor of that state
Hope Aldrich Rockefeller
Alida Ferry Rockefeller
Death
Rockefeller was killed in an automobile accident in Mount Pleasant, New York (near the Rockefeller family estate in Pocantico), on July 10, 1978, at the age of 72. He is buried at the Rockefeller Family Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York.