Jenkins of Mexico

William O. Jenkins (1878–1963) was a Tennessee farm boy who ventured to Mexico in search of fortune and became that country’s wealthiest and most infamous industrialist. Dropping out of Vanderbilt, Jenkins eloped with a southern belle and settled in Mexico in 1901. Driven by a desire to prove himself—first to his wife’s snobbish family, then to elites who disdained him as an American—Jenkins would spend the next six decades building an enormous fortune in textiles, property, sugar, banking, and film. Already a millionaire when the Revolution of 1910 broke out, Jenkins began speculating in property in his adoptive state of Puebla. He had a brush with a firing squad and later suffered a kidnapping by rebels, an episode that almost triggered a US invasion. After the war he developed Mexico’s most productive sugar plantation, before diversifying as a venture capitalist. During Mexican cinema’s Golden Age in the 1940s and 1950s, Jenkins lorded over the industry with a monopoly of theaters and a major role in production. Reputed as an exploiter of workers, a puppet-master of politicians, and Mexico’s richest industrialist, Jenkins became the gringo that Mexicans most loved to loathe. After the death of his wife, wracked by guilt at having abandoned her, Jenkins became increasingly dedicated to philanthropy, finally creating a charitable foundation to administer his $60 million fortune. Still operating today, the Mary Street Jenkins Foundation helped set up two prestigious universities and set a precedent for US-style foundations in Mexico.