| Inspired by Booker T. Washington,
Rosenwald spurred the establishment of 25 YMCA-YWCAs to serve
African-Americans in cities across the U.S., including the
Wabash Avenue YMCA in Chicago. (Existing Y’s at the time
served only whites.) In addition, he established one of the
nation’s first housing projects, on Chicago’s South Side,
and, with challenge grants, seeded the creation of more than
5,000 schools for black children in southern states at a time
when few received any public education.
In 1917, he established the Julius Rosenwald
Fund, a charity for the economic, medical and cultural
advancement of blacks in America, with an endowment of $30
million. He also gave about $6.6 million to establish the Museum
of Science and Industry in Chicago, and more than $4 million to
the University of Chicago.
American merchant and philanthropist Julius
Rosenwald was born and educated in Springfield, Ill., and served
as vice-president and treasurer (1895) of the mail-order concern
of Sears, Roebuck & Co. He became president of the company
in 1910 and chairman of the board of directors in 1925.
He introduced the concept of mail-order
business, and created one of the first savings and
profit-sharing plans for employees.
* * *
Do not be fooled into
believing that because a man is rich he is necessarily smart.
There is ample proof to the contrary. Julius
Rosenwald
* * *
Edith Rosenwald Stern was the daughter of
Julius Rosenwald who was the head of Sears, Roebuck and Co. and
also a philanthropist in Chicago. Edith married Edgar Bloom Stern,
a prominent New Orleans businessman, in 1921. While Mrs. Edgar
Stern focused her attention on establishing the Newcomb Nursery
School and the Metairie Park Country Day School, Edgar was
becoming involved in philanthropic pursuits as well as excelling
as a business leader.
In 1930 he was made planning chairman of the
fundraising drive to merge two local African-American schools,
Straight College and New Orleans University, into Dillard
University. At the university’s founding, he became the first
president of its board of directors, a post that Edith Stern
filled after his death in 1959.
Both Sterns are buried at their showcase home,
Longue Vue, in New Orleans.
The Rosenwald Fund for County
Libraries
The Julius Rosenwald Fund in 1929
decided to offer aid to libraries in the southern states.
According to the terms of the offer two libraries in each of the
13 states of the section would be helped to extend their service
to include all residents of the county in which the library
operated.
The conditions of the grant called
for service to all elements of the population, city and rural,
white and Negro. Emphasis was laid on service to rural people, and
it was proposed that branch reading rooms be established and that
books be carried also to people living in isolated sections of the
open country. |
