John Dargan Hollingsworth Jr. (December 26, 1917 – December 30, 2000) was an American businessman, textile machinery inventor, and philanthropist.
Background and early life Hollingsworth was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but moved to Greenville, South Carolina, as a small child. During the last decade of the 19th century, Hollingsworth's grandfather, Pinckney Carson Hollingsworth, traveled between textile mills repairing carding machines, a business inherited by Hollingsworth's father, John D. Hollingsworth Sr. (1878–1942), and one in which Hollingsworth Jr. participated from an early age. Hollingsworth graduated from Greenville High School and spent one lackluster year as a student at Furman University. But following his father's death in 1942, he and his mother inherited the business.Irvine T. Welling Jr., "John D. Hollingsworth Jr. and My Experiences Working with Him," Proceedings and Papers of the Greenville County Historical Society, 2006–2014, 13 (2015), 23–33.
Career In January 1944, Hollingsworth received his first patent for "an invention that allowed textile machinery to better process synthetic fibers." Shortly thereafter he was both drafted into the U.S. Navy and married his bookkeeper, Ella Mae Bennett, who managed the business in his absence. In the 1950s, Hollingsworth perfected metallic card clothing, revolutionizing the textile carding process. He also purchased and rebuilt used cards for sale.Welling, 24. Ella Hollingsworth played a significant role in managing her husband's business for more than fifteen years. Mary Jane Hollingsworth Crolley, Machinations (Simpsonville, SC: privately published, 1988). Though Hollingsworth products and his reputation for excellent service soon made him a wealthy, internationally significant manufacturer of textile machinery, he could be a slapdash businessman. In 1964, a newly hired accountant was horrified to discover that although Hollingsworth's company had annual sales of about $9 million, the business was not incorporated and Hollingsworth had kept no accounting books.Welling, 25. "There were stacks of cancelled checks wrapped with different colored ribbon to signify the type of expenses." Hollingsworth was also overly enamored of innovative textile machinery and made many uneconomical purchases.Welling, 26.
Nevertheless, Hollingsworth used his wealth to invest in land, spending forty years amassing 42,000 acres.Hollingsworth Funds website. "Whenever he purchased additional property, he would immediately plant pine trees if the property was not already wooded. In addition to his love of the trees, it qualified the property for agricultural use at lower property tax rates." Welling, 26. In 1989, he was reputedly the largest private landholder in South Carolina, and Forbes listed him as one of the 400 wealthiest Americans.GoUpstate.com;
Personal life Hollingsworth's accountant called him "very private, secretive, a perfectionist, and a genius."Welling, 25. In 1964 Hollingsworth accused his wife and only daughter of stealing more than a half million dollars from his office, and thereafter they remained permanently estranged—though the wife and daughter were acquitted after he refused to testify against them at trial.TextileWorld.com; "Victim's Kin Cited in $550,000 Theft," New York Times, May 13, 1965, 22. Hollingsworth regularly kept large amounts of cash in his office. For many years thereafter, Hollingsworth lived in eccentric simplicity, making his home in an Airstream trailer behind his plant and driving a Volkswagen Rabbit. Yet he was generous to his employees and kept a warehouse full of boxed toys.Welling, 31. Hollingsworth also collected old coins and guns, antique cars, and pewter plates.
Death and philanthropy Hollingsworth died suddenly in 2000. He had specified that his funeral be private with no obituary notice, and he was quietly buried beside his parents in Springwood Cemetery.Wellling, 31–32. In 1976, Hollingsworth had established a charitable foundation, Hollingsworth Funds; and at his death, the bulk of his estate, between $290 million and half a billion dollars, passed to the foundation, which was required to make annual distributions to Furman University (45%), the YMCA of Greenville (10%), and public charities of Greenville County (45%).Hollingsworth Funds website The announcement of his massive gift to Greenville came as a "stunning surprise."Judith Bainbridge, "A Private Man," Greenville News, April 23, 2017, 2A.
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