America at 250: How Chicago businessman Julius Rosenwald used his fortune to transform education
In the early 1900s, a brilliant Chicago businessman set the standard for corporate success and used his fortune to help transform education across the U.S.
At the turn of the 20th century, Chicago was the place to be.
"It was one of the fastest growing if not the fastest growing city in the world," said Nicholas Foster, Assistant Instructional Professor in Chicago Studies at the University of Chicago.
As the city grew, so did the career of Julius Rosenwald, the major force behind retail giant Sears, Roebuck and Co.
His beginnings were simple. The son of Jewish immigrants, he was born in 1862, in a house in Springfield, Illinois.
He dropped out of high school after two years to apprentice at his uncle's clothing business in New York.
"Then moved back to Illinois, settling in Chicago, where he started a clothing business, and he made readymade suits," said Chicago History Museum director of exhibitions Paul Durica. "And it was this business that brought him into the orbit of R.W. Sears and really kind of changed Rosenwald's destiny."
Sears pioneered the mail order catalogue.
"Sears essentially took the department store and put it in a catalogue that you could reach from home. So, you could buy the goods available in big cities. You didn't have to travel to Chicago," foster said.
In 1895, Rosenwald bought a stake in Sears, and by 1908 he was president of the company.
"He grew Sears from a secondhand department store to a national model of logistical empire," Foster said.
Despite his top position, Rosenwald referred to the thousands of Sears' employees as his co-workers. He soon became a multi-millionaire and a major philanthropist.
"He felt that as long as he was able to meet the needs of himself and his family, whatever else he had, he should give back, whether it was giving it back to his co-workers at Sears or to the larger community," Durica said.
When hard financial times hit the nation, Rosenwald used his own money to keep the company and his co-workers afloat. He also was a pioneer of company profit sharing, but his concerns reached beyond the corporate world.
"He was also willing to confront and admit that there are deep racial problems in the United States," Durica said. "You have to look it directly, and you have to confront it, and the only way for the country to overcome it is if everybody is engaged and involved in it."
In 1910, Rosenwald met author and Tuskegee Institute founder Booker T. Washington.
"He visits Tuskegee Institute, he becomes close friends with Washington, and he invites Washington to come back and stay at his home in Kenwood," Durica said.
Together, they created a plan to build schools for Black children throughout the segregated South, but Rosenwald believed in helping people to help themselves.
"Local communities would raise part of the funds, and they would really help to kind of develop and design the schools," Durica said. "Then Rosenwald would match what they were doing to make sure that the schools get built and were sustained."
The schools inspired learning, featuring gardens and tall windows to let in light.
Over 30 years, the Rosenwald Fund helped build more than 5,000 schools, community shops, and homes for teachers in 15 states. Graduates of those schools included author Maya Angelou and Congressman John Lewis.
A fellowship program offered grants to promote education and achievement. Recipients included singer Marian Anderson, authors Ralph Ellison and Langston Hughes, and the first African American to win the Nobel Peace Prize, Ralph Bunche.
"The fund is set up in such a way that all of it has to be expended within 25 years of his death, and that was intentional," Durica said. "He wanted to make sure the fund was providing immediate support in the areas where it was most needed, and then he also wanted to basically put it forward as a challenge to future and fellow philanthropists."
Rosenwald died in 1932. In his lifetime, he donated the equivalent of more than $1 billion in today's money. Giving to others was one of his greatest joys.
"So few people had done so much public good – not just in Chicago, but across the country – and received so little public recognition," Durica said. "But, being the humble man he was, that's exactly the way he wanted it."
Rosenwald also funded construction of YMCAs across the county, founded the Museum of Science and Industry, and was an early supporter of the NAACP.
There is a campaign to recognize him and the Rosenwald schools as a national historic park. A visitor center in Chicago and several schools are on the wish list.