Royal Little (March 1, 1896 – January 10, 1989) was the founder and chair of Textron, and is considered to be the father of conglomerates. Little graduated from Noble & Greenough School in 1915 and from Harvard University in 1919, despite having been on academic probation. He soon began working for various textile firms, before founding Special Yarns Corporation in 1923 on $10,000 (equivalent to $159,000 in 2021) in borrowed money, whose name he changed to Textron in 1944. Little spent much of his time acquiring other textile firms, and was successful in his efforts. By 1947, the company reported sales of $125 million (equivalent to $1.2 billion in 2021).