Winton M. Blount - Misplaced Pages

American industrialist and postmaster general

Red Blount


59th United States Postmaster General
In office January 22, 1969 – January 1, 1972
President	Richard Nixon
Preceded by	W. Marvin Watson
Succeeded by	E. T. Klassen

Personal details
Born	Winton Malcolm Blount (1921-02-01)February 1, 1921 Union Springs, Alabama, U.S.
Died	October 24, 2002(2002-10-24) (aged 81) Highlands, North Carolina, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch/service	United States Army
Unit	United States Army Air Forces
Battles/wars	World War II

Winton Malcolm Blount, known as Red Blount (February 1, 1921 – October 24, 2002), was an American philanthropist and politician who served as the United States Postmaster General from January 22, 1969, to January 1, 1972. He founded and served as the chief executive officer of the large construction company, Blount International, based in Montgomery, Alabama.

Blount was the last Postmaster General when the position was within the presidential Cabinet.

Background

Born in Union Springs, Alabama, Blount served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, having trained as a B-29 pilot. However, the war ended before his training was completed. Blount's first name was spelled with a "y" on his birth certificate, but he used Winton as an adult in his business dealings to avoid having to explain the unusual spelling.

In 1946, Blount and his brother William Houston Blount started a building contractor company, Blount Brothers. The company worked on such construction projects as the First Avenue Viaduct in Birmingham, the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, and Cape Canaveral's Complex 39A which launched Apollo 11 in Florida.

In 1952, Blount was appointed the Alabama Chairman of Citizens for Eisenhower, then in 1960 Southeastern Campaign Chairman for Richard M. Nixon's unsuccessful presidential campaign against John F. Kennedy. In 1961, Blount was elected President of the Alabama Chamber of Commerce; in 1968, President of the United States Chamber of Commerce.

In 1964, Blount was appointed by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson to the National Citizens Committee for Community Relations to advise the White House on the enforcement of the new Civil Rights Act of 1964 even though Blount had expressed doubts about the new law.

In 1969, Blount was appointed as the Postmaster General by U.S. President Richard Nixon, and he supervised the transition in 1971 of the U.S. Post Office Department from a Cabinet-level department of the U.S. government to a special independent executive agency. He was thus the last Cabinet-level Postmaster General, and he served as the first director of the new U.S. Postal Service. Blount's assistant Postmaster General was James M. Henderson.

In 1971, Blount's profile was depicted alongside that of Benjamin Franklin's on the face of a silver proof coin commemorating the inauguration of the new Postal Service. The commemorative coin was offered in a carrier with one stamp bearing a Philadelphia postmark from the old Post Office, and another from Washington D.C., placed by the new Postal Service.

U.S. Senate campaign, 1972

Main article: 1972 United States Senate election in Alabama

Blount faced in the general election the long-term incumbent Democrat, John Sparkman, who had been the 1952 Democratic candidate for vice president against Richard M. Nixon. From May 1972 to November 1972, future U.S. President George W. Bush transferred from the Texas Air National Guard to serve as the political director in Blount's campaign.

The final results were Sparkman 654,491 (65.3 percent) to Blount's 347,523 (34.7 percent). Blount carried only traditionally Republican Winston and Houston counties and lost his home county of Montgomery.

Later years

In 1973, Blount returned to Blount International, Inc., becoming its president once again in 1974. From 1981 to 1984 Blount, Inc., built the King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

In 1980, Blount served as national chairman of the Texan John Connally's unsuccessful primary campaign, with the nomination being won by Ronald W. Reagan of California.

In 1996, the Greenwich Publishing Group published his autobiography called Doing It My Way, which he had co-written with Richard Blodgett.

In 1999, Blount International, Inc., was sold to Lehman Brothers company for $1.35 billion.

Blount died in Highlands, North Carolina, at the age of eighty-one.

Legacy

Blount and his wife Carolyn, were philanthropists and notable patrons of the arts. Together they founded the Blount Cultural Park in Montgomery, which is home to the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. The Blounts donated the land and a 100,000 square foot theater as the new home of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in 1985. The cost was $21.5 million and at the time was the largest private donation to an American theater.

In 1980, Blount received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

The Winton M. Blount Elementary School in Montgomery County, completed in 2003, is named in his honor. Located on the city's rapidly growing east side, it is one of the largest elementary schools in the region.

The Blount Undergraduate Initiative, a liberal arts honors program for Blount Scholars, was started at the University of Alabama. Blount Scholars reside in the Blount Living Learning Center on the campus.

The Winton M. Blount Center for Postal Studies and the Winton M. Blount Research Chair, both at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, were founded with an endowment from the Blount estate.

References

Blodgett, Richard. "Winton M. Blount Jr". The Encyclopedia of Alabama. Retrieved April 6, 2018.
"James M. Henderson (1921-1995)". knowitall.org. Retrieved May 4, 2014.
Cook, Rhodes (2013). America Votes 30: 2011-2012, Election Returns by State. CQ Press. p. 57. ISBN 978-1-4522-9017-1.
blountculturalpark.org
"Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.

Blount, Winton M. (1996). Doing It My Way. Greenwich Publishing Group. ISBN 0-944641-19-9

External links

Winton M. Blount at Find a Grave

Political offices
Preceded byW. Marvin Watson	United States Postmaster General 1969–1972	Succeeded byE. T. Klassen
Party political offices
Preceded byJohn Grenier	Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Alabama (Class 2) 1972	VacantTitle next held byAlbert L. Smith Jr.

v t e United States postmasters general
Confederal	Franklin Bache Hazard
Federal	Osgood Pickering Habersham G. Granger Meigs McLean
Cabinet level Post Office Department	Barry Kendall Niles F. Granger Wickliffe Johnson Collamer Hall Hubbard Campbell A. Brown Holt King Blair Dennison Randall Creswell Marshall Jewell Tyner Key Maynard James Howe Gresham Hatton Vilas Dickinson Wanamaker Bissell Wilson Gary Smith Payne Wynne Cortelyou Meyer Hitchcock Burleson Hays Work New W. Brown Farley Walker Hannegan Donaldson Summerfield Day Gronouski O'Brien Watson Blount
U.S. Postal Service	Blount Klassen Bailar Bolger Carlin Casey Tisch Frank Runyon Henderson Potter Donahoe Brennan DeJoy

Cabinet of President Richard Nixon (1969–1974)

Cabinet
Vice President	Spiro Agnew (1969–1973) None (1973) Gerald Ford (1973–1974)
Secretary of State	William P. Rogers (1969–1973) Henry Kissinger (1973–1974)
Secretary of the Treasury	David M. Kennedy (1969–1971) John Connally (1971–1972) George Shultz (1972–1974) William E. Simon (1974)
Secretary of Defense	Melvin Laird (1969–1973) Elliot Richardson (1973) James R. Schlesinger (1973–1974)
Attorney General	John N. Mitchell (1969–1972) Richard Kleindienst (1972–1973) Elliot Richardson (1973) William B. Saxbe (1974)
Postmaster General	Winton M. Blount (1969–1971)
Secretary of the Interior	Wally Hickel (1969–1970) Rogers Morton (1971–1974)
Secretary of Agriculture	Clifford M. Hardin (1969–1971) Earl Butz (1971–1974)
Secretary of Commerce	Maurice Stans (1969–1972) Peter G. Peterson (1972–1973) Frederick B. Dent (1973–1974)
Secretary of Labor	George Shultz (1969–1970) James Day Hodgson (1970–1973) Peter J. Brennan (1973–1974)
Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare	Robert Finch (1969–1970) Elliot Richardson (1970–1973) Caspar Weinberger (1973–1974)
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development	George W. Romney (1969–1973) James Thomas Lynn (1973–1974)
Secretary of Transportation	John A. Volpe (1969–1973) Claude Brinegar (1973–1974)

Cabinet-level
Director of the Bureau of the Budget	Robert P. Mayo (1969–1970)
Director of the Office of Management and Budget	George Shultz (1970–1972) Caspar Weinberger (1972–1973) Roy Ash (1973–1974)
Ambassador to the United Nations	Charles Yost (1969–1971) George H. W. Bush (1971–1973) John A. Scali (1973–1974)
Counselor to the President	Arthur F. Burns (1969) Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1969–1970) Bryce Harlow (1969–1970) Robert Finch (1970–1972) Donald Rumsfeld (1970–1971) Anne L. Armstrong (1973–1974) Dean Burch (1974) Kenneth Rush (1974)

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