Archives West Finding Aid

Robert H. Hinckley was born in Fillmore, Utah, June 8, 1891, the son of Edwin S. and Addie Henry Hinckley. His father was professor of geology and chemistry at Brigham Young University from 1895-1915 and served in other positions at that institution during his lifetime. It was in this college atmosphere that Robert H. Hinckley grew up and was educated, receiving his early education at the Brigham Young Training School. Upon graduating from Brigham Young High School in 1910, he served as a missionary in Germany for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1916 Hinckley graduated with a BA degree from Brigham Young University.

On June 23, 1915, Robert Hinckley married Abrelia Clarissa Seely, daughter of John H. and Margaret Peel Seely. Together, they had four children. After Hinckley graduated from Brigham Young University, the couple moved to Mount Pleasant, Utah, where Hinckley became a member of the North Sanpete High School faculty. In the same year he established the Seely-Hinckley Automobile Company in Mount Pleasant.

Hinckley entered politics in 1918, Hinckley was elected to the Utah State Legislature from Sanpete County, serving from 1918 to 1920. In 1923 he was elected as the first Democratic mayor of Mount Pleasant, serving from 1924 to 1925. Hinckley moved to Ogden, Utah, in 1927 and established another automobile business, Robert H. Hinckley Dodge, Inc. In 1928 he moved the dealership to Ogden and, in 1955, opened a second dealership in Salt Lake City, Hinckley Dodge, on State Street.

In addition to his automobile businesses, Hinckley had an enthusiasm for flight that had developed early. He attended his first International Air Meet at Belmont Park, New York, in 1910. Three years later at Templehofer Field, Berlin, Germany, he made his first flight with Melli Beese, the champion woman flier of the world at that time and wife of the French airman Charles Boutard. In 1927, he was one of the first revenue passengers to fly between Salt Lake City and Reno on a Boeing Air Transport plane. In 1928, Hinckley helped organize, and became an officer of, the Utah-Pacific Airways, Inc. This company survived the pioneering stages of aviation with a perfect safety record. It was the first flying service to furnish airplanes to the government for the purpose of taking a game census in Yellowstone National Park. This became a common practice, as did the technique of dropping supplies to forest fire fighters by small parachutes, also developed by Utah-Pacific Airways. Hinckley was one of the most frequent users of commercial airplanes while serving as regional director of the Western Region for the Works Progress Administration and played an important role in the development of airports under the WPA program.

Robert H. Hinckley had served on Governor George H. Dern's Voluntary Relief Committee from 1931 and had been appointed in 1933 by Governor Henry H. Blood as director of the state emergency relief program enacted by a special session of the legislature of that year. The responsibility of supervising the expenditure of relief funds from their respective states, as well as large sums of money provided by the federal government, fell on the state directors. Within a few months after Hinckley took the job of distributing federal funds, the success of his administration attracted attention in Washington, D. C., and in September 1934 he was appointed by Harry L. Hopkins to serve as assistant administrator of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and continued as field representative of eleven western states, and Hawaii and Alaska, a position in which he served until 1938.

Hinckley’s role in economic relief programs during the Great Depression and his contributions to the development of the airline industry in the American West led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to nominate him to the Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA) in 1938. Hinckley was sworn into the role on August 8, 1938; several months later, in November 1938, construction began on the Washington National Airport, which was completed in June 1940. In April 1939, Hinckley became chairman of the CAA and a year later, in 1941, he was appointed assistant secretary of commerce. In this position, Hinckley was responsible for the direction of the CAA, the United States Weather Bureau, and the Coast and Geodetic Survey. He was involved in the development of the Civilian Pilot Training Program. This program, originally conceived by Hinckley as a peacetime project to give flight training to college-aged youth, proved to be one of the greatest contributions to the nation's war effort. The program was planned in 1938 and launched in 1939 with the passage by the Seventy-sixth Congress of the Civilian Pilot Training Act. At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, pilots were trained and airplanes were available for the United States military. In 1983, the Federal Aviation Administration gave Hinckley the Award for Extraordinary Service for his role in developing and administering the Civilian Pilot Training Program.

Hinckley resigned as assistant secretary of commerce in 1942 to join the Sperry Corporation (Sperry Rand), an American equipment and electronics company. During World War II, the Sperry Corporation was ranked 19th among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts.

Though Hinckley had intended to remain in private business for the remainder of his career, in 1944, President Roosevelt nominated him for Senate approval to be director of Contract Settlement for a term of two years. The settlement of government contracts was a challenge to the United States’ transition from wartime back into peace. In this position, Hinckley was responsible for preventing unemployment, waste, and other economic problems during the transition. The organization was set up and functioning successfully when Mr. Hinckley resigned eighteen months later, February 1, 1946, to return to private life.

In 1945, Hinckley founded KALL Radio. After leaving the Contract Settlement directorship, Hinckley co-founded the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) with Edward J. Noble, long a close friend and colleague. Shortly after, he was elected vice president and director of the company. In 1951, ABC merged with Paramount Theatres to become one of the largest television networks in the United States. He remained in this role until his retirement in 1959 at the age of sixty-eight.

Several years after the founding of ABC, President Harry S. Truman asked Hinckley, as a member of the Economic Cooperation Administration Public Advisory Board, to do a special inspection tour of European countries to determine the success of the Marshall Plan. Mr. Hinckley took a leave of absence in August 1949, from ABC to complete the inspection. He continued to serve on the advisory board when the Economic Cooperation Administration was succeeded by the Mutual Security Agency.

In addition to his work in government and business, Hinckley served on numerous boards and contributing to many philanthropic causes. He served four terms on the University of Utah Board of Regents, serving until 1973. On May 10, 1965 Hinckley established the Robert H. Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah with a gift from himself and the Edward John Noble Foundation. In 1954, Hinckley and three of his brothers established the Hinckley scholarship at Brigham Young University in honor of their father. He also established the Abrelia Seely Hinckley scholarship at Weber State College and the John H. Seely and Robert H. Hinckley scholarships at Utah State University.

In 1977, Hinckley published an autobiography, co-authored with JoAnn Jacobsen Wells, I’d Rather be Lucky Than Rich. In 1998 the Hinckley Institute published Bae B. Gardner's biography of Hinckley, Robert Henry Hinckley: Getting to Know Him. Hinckley received many award and honors throughout his lifetime, including the B’nai B’rith Citizen Achievement Award (1967); the Brotherhood Award of the Utah Chapter of the National Conference of Christians and Jews (1977); and inductions into the Beehive Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Utah Auto Dealers Hall of Fame in 1987. He also received honorary degrees from both Brigham Young University (1964) and the University of Utah (1973).

Robert H. Hinckley died on April 30, 1988.