John D Rockefeller Jr
WHS connected to John D Rockefeller Jr (1874-1960) via gifts or other forms of activity involving him personally. Activities in his name by his various Foundations are included up to the date of his death.
See http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/hall_of_fame/john_d._rockefeller_jr.
Connected Sites
| Site | Rationale | Link |
| Ancient Thebes | The excavations over many years at Luxor by the Chicago Oriental Institute (which itself had been founded with the assistance of Rockefeller) were funded by the Rockefeller Foundation). John D Rockefeller had a direct personal relationship with the Institute's founder Henry Breasted who had initiated a direct request to him for funds, and visited the dig in 1929. | |
| Biblical Tells | Megiddo. As per Ancient Thebes the excavations by the Chicago Oriental Institute were funded by Rockefeller between 1925 and 1939. He visited the dig in 1929 and founded the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem at a cost of $2 million to display the finds from there and elsewhere in the "Holy Land" | |
| Fontainebleau | "1927-31 Restoration by Albert Bray of the upper sections of the Fine Fireplace wing which had been destroyed by fire in 1856. The work is financed by the Rockefeller foundation" | |
| Grand Canyon | "In 1926 the Rockefeller Memorial underwrote the cost of the Yavapai Observation Station Museum at Grand Canyon National Park" | |
| Great Smoky Mountains | "The U.S. National Park Service wanted a park in the eastern United States, but did not have much money to establish one. Though Congress had authorized the park in 1926, there was no nucleus of federally owned land around which to build a park. John D Rockefeller Jr contributed $5 million, the U.S. government added $2 million, and private citizens from Tennessee and North Carolina pitched in to assemble the land for the park, piece by piece" (Wiki) A "Rockefeller Memorial" is situated at Newfound Gap. | |
| Mesa Verde | Rockefeller partly financed the museum and other improvements | |
| Mexico City and Xochimilco | John D Rockefeller features prominently in Diego Rivera's mural Man, Controller of the Universe his son initially commissioned it for the Rockefeller centre in New York. | |
| Reims | Rockefeller was major funder of the cathedral's reconstruction after its destruction in WWI. The main street in front of the Cathedral has been renamed "Rue Rockefeller" | |
| Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France | The Cloisters Museum of New York (now part of Met Museum of Art) was created by Rockefeller between 1935-9 with close personal involvement as a result of his interest in mediaeval art and contains reconstructed cloisters which were originally part of 5 religious buildings in France and had been collected by a sculptor friend of Rockefeller. One of these, The Abbey of St Guilhem-le-Desert is inscribed as part of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France. | |
| Versailles | Rockefeller funded the restoration of Versailles after WWI | |
| Yellowstone | "At Yellowstone, the trailside museums evolved into a system of four buildings, again sponsored by the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial fund. These four museums, opened from 1928 to 1931, interpreted the features found along the park's Grand Loop Road to passing visitors. All four museums employed a distinct style of rustic, natural materials used in a way that promoted an intimacy between the landscape and the structures." | |
| Yosemite National Park | "When commercial loggers threatened to destroy large stands of sugar pines adjacent to Yosemite, he provided more than $1 million to save 15,000 acres of forest" - this "Rockefeller Purchase" was then returned to the NP. Also "a grant of $70,500 to build and equip a museum in Yosemite to serve as a model for this type of facility. The building was completed and presented to the NPS by the American Association of Museums in 1925 and was opened to the public in 1926." (It was superseded by a new Visitor Centre in 1966) |
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