John Sargent Pillsbury, Jr.

John Sargent Pillsbury Jr. (1912–2005) was an American attorney, insurance executive, community leader, and patron of the arts in the U.S. State of Minnesota. He was a member of the Minnesota Pillsbury family, "one of Minnesota's most notable, public-spirited families" which built its fortunes in flour milling, iron ore, and forestry, and which practiced "a civic-minded capitalism that gave back to the community by supporting education, the arts and public institutions". John S. Pillsbury was part of this tradition. In addition to his legal and business career, he led two organizations responsible for building significant buildings anchoring the ends of the Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis, the Northwestern National Life Building of the eponymous company which Pillsbury led, and Orchestra Hall, the home of the Minnesota Orchestra, which Pillsbury served as board chair. He was a board member for three educational institutions, several other nonprofits, and publicly held corporations. Long active in the Republican Party, he was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Minnesota. Early years and education Pillsbury, born October 28, 1912, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was a son of John Sargent Pillsbury and Eleanor Jerusha Lawler Pillsbury. The senior John Pillsbury was the son of Charles Alfred Pillsbury, a cofounder of the Pillsbury Company. The other co-founder was Charles' uncle, also named John Sargent Pillsbury, who had been governor of Minnesota in the nineteenth century. Pillsbury went to preparatory school at Blake School in Minnesota and St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He obtained a degree in history at Yale University in 1935 and worked for the Pillsbury Company in 1936 and 1937. Pillsbury then attended the University of Minnesota Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Minnesota Law Review. In 1940 he received his LL.B.