# Julius Rosenwald: The Man Who Built Sears, Roebuck and Advanced the Cause of Black Education in the American South - Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/books/julius-rosenwald-the-man-who-built-sears-roebuck-and-advanced-the-cause-of-black-education-in-the-american-south/ - Published: 2015-08-17T16:08:00+01:00 - Author: Howard Lake **Julius Rosenwald was one of the greatest philanthropists of the twentieth century, yet outside the United States he remains almost unknown. ** As co-owner and president of Sears, Roebuck and Company he built the largest retail enterprise in the world. He then gave much of his fortune away, most transformatively by funding over 5,300 schools for Black children across the segregated American South. His grandson Peter M. Ascoli tells the full story for the first time. Julius Rosenwald was born in 1862, the son of German Jewish immigrants who had settled in Springfield, Illinois, in the same street, as it happened, as Abraham Lincoln. He made his fortune in the clothing trade before becoming part-owner and eventually president of Sears, Roebuck and Company, which he transformed into the greatest mail-order company in the world. * [**Buy the book**](https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0253020581?tag=219) He also founded Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. When he died in 1932, W.E.B. DuBois wrote of him: “He was a great man. But he was no mere philanthropist. He was, rather, the subtle stinging critic of our racial democracy.” ## Rosenwald Schools The centrepiece of Rosenwald’s philanthropic legacy is the network of schools he built across the rural American South in partnership with Booker T. Washington. At a time when Black children in the segregated South had virtually no access to adequate education, the Rosenwald Fund financed the construction of 5,357 schools, known as Rosenwald Schools, serving more than 660,000 Black children in 15 states. The schools were built on a matching-grant model that required local communities and state governments to contribute alongside the fund, embedding them in their communities and creating lasting civic infrastructure. They stand as one of the most consequential acts of private philanthropy in American history. Rosenwald is also a figure of unusual intellectual interest because of his views on the long-term role of philanthropic foundations. Convinced that foundations too easily calcified into self-perpetuating bureaucracies remote from the needs they were created to address, he stipulated that the Rosenwald Fund **must spend itself out of existence** within 25 years of his death — which it duly did, in 1948. His critique of perpetual foundations, and the “spend-down” model he pioneered, remain live debates in philanthropy today. Ascoli, who is Rosenwald’s grandson, draws on family papers, correspondence, and archival sources to produce what reviewers have recognised as the definitive biography. Named one of the _Chicago Tribune_‘s Best Books of the Year 2006, it belongs on the shelf alongside the biographies of Carnegie and Rockefeller as an essential account of the golden age of American philanthropy, and of the questions about wealth, obligation, and democratic accountability that age raises. The title is book five in the 18-book series **Philanthropic and Nonprofit Studies.** The series includes titles by Robert Payton and other major figures in the field. ## **About Peter M Ascoli** Peter M. Ascoli taught at the Spertus Institute of Jewish Learning and Leadership in Chicago from 1995 to 2015, and previously at Utah State University. He also served as Director of Development for the Chicago Opera Theater and the Steppenwolf Theater Company. He is the grandson of Julius Rosenwald, and drew on previously unexplored family papers and archives to write this biography. ## **Reviews** > “Ascoli’s work will stand as the definitive biography of Julius Rosenwald for > a long time to come.” > **David Blanke, _An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish > Studies_** > “This is the first serious biography of the exuberant man who transformed the > Sears, Roebuck company into the country’s most important retailer. He was also > one of the early twentieth century’s notable philanthropists. The richness of > primary evidence continually delights.” > **Judith Sealander, author of _Private > Wealth and Public Life_** > “A compelling figure, a mensch who followed his principles, mixing good business > with good social justice.” > _**The Forward**_ > “Set against the virtual absence of Black education in the rural South beforehand, > his schools qualified as revolutionary. Rosenwald established a standard of enlightenment, > impact and common sense.” > **_Moment_ magazine** > “Peter Ascoli has written a sensitive biography of his grandfather. What we see > is a very modest, successful business leader and philanthropist whose skill and > generosity merit his recognition as one of our preeminent citizens at the advent > of the twentieth century.” > **Bill Gates Sr.** The book listed here is the 2015 paperback reprint of the 2006 hardback. ## Related books on UK Fundraising * _Andrew Carnegie_ (Nasaw) and _Carnegie_ (Krass) for the parallel story of Carnegie’s philanthropic legacy; * _The Foundation_ (Fleishman) for an overview of how American foundations shaped public life; * _[Why the Wealthy Give](https://fundraising.co.uk/books/why-the-wealthy-give-the-culture-of-elite-philanthropy/)_( Ostrower) for the cultural analysis of elite American philanthropy; * _Through the Eye of a Needle_ (Brown) for the deep historical roots of the relationship between wealth and obligation.