Northwestern university

During World War II, Northwestern offered its facilities for use by the War Department. The Army, Navy, and Civil Aeronautics Administration operated eleven training programs at Northwestern in addition to the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (N.R.O.T.C.) established in 1926: the Navy V-7, Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School; the Navy V-5, Naval Aviation Prepatory Program; the Navy V-1, Accredited College Program; the Naval Training School (Radio); the Army Signal Corps Officers Training School; the Naval H-V(P) and Army Medical and Dental program; the Civil Aeronautics Administration War Training Service; the Civilian Pilot Training Program; the Naval Training School (Cooks & Bakers); the Naval V-12 Unit (Navy College Training Program); and the Civil Affairs Training School.

Nathaniel Leverone was born on June 26, 1884 in Wakefield, Massachusetts. After graduating from Dartmouth College, Class of 1906, Leverone came to Chicago. He held sales and management positions in a variety of businesses before founding the Canteen Corporation (formerly the Automatic Canteen Corporation), which manufactured and serviced automatic vending machines, in 1929. Leverone stepped down from the chairmanship of the Canteen Corporation in 1960 to pursue philanthropic, civic, and religious endeavors. He died in 1969.

In 1968, Leverone donated $5,000,000 to Northwestern University to fund the construction of a building to house the Graduate School of Business Administration (now the Kellogg Graduate School of Management). According to the University's press release announcing the gift, Leverone made the donation “not only as a friend of Northwestern but to strengthen private higher education and 'to help perpetuate the free enterprise system as an integral part of the American way of life'” (August 15, 1968).

Leverone died on May 29, 1969. On July 8, 1970, Leverone's widow attended the groundbreaking ceremony for Nathaniel Leverone Hall. Mrs. Leverone died on October 31, 1972.

See also Nathaniel Leverone, Pioneer in Automatic Merchandising by Gladys Zehnpfennig (Minneapolis, MN: T.S. Denison & Company, 1963) and The Evolution of Management Education: A History of the J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, 1908-1983, by Michael W. Sedlak and Harold F. Williamson (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983.