Henry Bennett was born in Nevada County, Arkansas, the son of Thomas Jefferson and Mary Elizabeth Bright Bennett. His father, poor and nearly blind, was a Baptist preacher who farmed until 1892, when he moved the family to Arkadelphia, Arkansas, so the children could attend school.
Henry Bennett entered the primary department of the Baptist-affiliated Ouachita College in 1895 and completed the secondary and college courses, graduating with the B. A. in 1907. He was active in extracurricular activities and held odd jobs to contribute to the family's lean finances. Later he earned the M. A. from the University of Oklahoma in 1924 and the Ph. D. from Columbia University in 1926.
Bennett taught briefly before accepting, in 1908, the superintendency of schools in Boswell, Oklahoma. In 1909 he took charge of the Choctaw County schools and in 1910 of those in Hugo. In 1918 Bennett helped found the Ancient and Beneficent Order of the Red Red Rose, an organization for the social and professional improvement of teachers. In 1919 Bennett became president of Southeastern State Teachers College in Durant, Oklahoma, where he formulated a curriculum that gained national recognition, especially for its program of summer lectures. He published texts in arithmetic (1924) and collaborated on one in curriculum revision (1928). Particularly concerned with physical-plant development, he added several structures to the campus. During his administration college enrollment quintupled from 300 to 1, 500 pupils.
Simultaneously Bennett completed his own education, earning the M. A. from the University of Oklahoma in 1924 and the Ph. D. from Columbia University in 1926. His dissertation - Coordination of State Institutions for Higher Education in Oklahoma - was published in 1926 and was the first call for a unified, statewide system. Bennett thereafter worked toward this goal, serving as secretary of the State Coordinating Board from 1939 to 1942. In 1928 Bennett was elected president of Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College in Stillwater. An effective speaker and a dynamic and charismatic leader, he centralized administrative power, stabilized a tenuous faculty situation, and welded alumni and students to him. In 1931, as governor of Rotary International's twelfth district, he traveled to Europe; the trip made him less provincial and broadened his vision.
Firmly in control of Oklahoma A. and M. , Bennett in 1931 announced an ambitious twenty-five-year plan for campus development, which he virtually completed during his twenty-three-year administration. He brought several New Deal programs to Stillwater and utilized many of them to help finance his construction projects.
During the Great Depression he inaugurated several self-help industries to assist students, including a broom factory and a ceramics plant that produced the only flowerpots manufactured in the state. He fostered pioneering work in soil conservation and in 1936 was chairman of the state soil conservation committee. He instituted in 1939 the first collegiate department for training in fighting fires. An aviation enthusiast, he inaugurated A. and M. 's flying school in 1939 and gave impetus to the National Flying Farmer movement after World War II.
During the 1930's Bennett wrote, or collaborated on, four survey texts in American and English literature and six in arithmetic. Bennett established special training courses at A. and M. during World War II and afterward eagerly provided benefits for veteran students, building the largest veterans' village in the United States. In 1949 he opened a branch for vocational education in Okmulgee and with captured German diesel research equipment created the Oklahoma Power and Propulsion Laboratory at Stillwater to encourage industrial development in the state. Bennett was the only head of a land-grant school named to the United States delegation to the International Food and Agricultural Organization Conference on European rehabilitation, held in 1945, at which he urged countries to create schools similar to land-grant colleges.
In 1949 he served as agricultural rehabilitation agent to the United States Army in Bavaria. Emperor Haile Selassie in 1950 invited Bennett to advise him on organization of an agricultural training center in Ethiopia. On November 14, 1950, President Harry S. Truman appointed Bennett assistant Secretary of State and administrator of the Technical Cooperation Administration, popularly known as the Point Four Program. A county-agent program on a worldwide scale, Point Four was designed to combat the spread of communism by providing underdeveloped nations with training and assistance in technology, public health, education, and especially agriculture. During 1951 Bennett traveled widely, implementing more than 105 projects in thirty-three countries. In defending Point Four at home, he gained attention by refusing large appropriations, which he feared would impair Point Four's effectiveness by making it a political issue. Bennett died near Teheran, Iran, with his wife, three staff members, and sixteen others, when his airliner crashed while trying to land in a blinding snowstorm.
Henry Bennett was one of the most prominent educational figures in Oklahoma. He served as the president of Southeastern Oklahoma State University and Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College (today Oklahoma State University). Under his control both this institutions prospered. By 1950 Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College, with 14, 000 students, was the largest institution of higher education in Oklahoma and the second largest agricultural college in the country. Bennett was also appointed by President Harry S. Truman as an Assistant Secretary of State, heading up the Point Four Program
Bennett was a devout Baptist throughout his life. He regularly taught Sunday School classes that attracted large attendance. He served as well on the boards of both the Oklahoma and the Southern Baptist conventions.
Bennett was an active Democrat, and his autocratic temperament and his control of so much public money, combined with his strong opinions on the proper course for higher education in Oklahoma, kept him embroiled in state politics. He gained useful insight into, and contributed to the success of political programs by lending staff members for duty in federal and state government agencies. Bennett believed strongly in using education to improve social conditions, and he considered land-grant colleges the most effective tool for that purpose.
Hennry Bennett was a founding member of the Ancient and Beneficent Order of the Red Red Rose.
On January 29, 1913, Henry Bennett married Vera Pearl Connell, the daughter of a federal judge. She was a former teacher under Bennett and the first woman to direct a college physical-education program in Oklahoma. They had five children
