Overview of The Rosenwald Fund
Who was Julius Rosenwald?
Born in Illinois in 1868, Julius Rosenwald was the son of German immigrants, and he grew up in the life of sales. In 1908 he became president of Sears, Roebuck, and Company, beginning two decades of business success. In 1910, he looked to expand his life to a career of philanthropy alongside the success of his business. Through his wife, his rabbi, and Judaism, he saw a need to serve society’s needy citizens.
Who influenced him?
A friend, Julian W. Mack introduced Rosenwald to Jane Addams, through whom he was exposed to Hull House and the idea of service. He contributed to Hull House and an African American YMCA. Through William H. Baldwin Jr.’s biography, which discussed Booker T. Washington, Rosenwald encountered the Tuskegee Institute and the importance of schooling in rural areas. When Washington traveled to Chicago in 1911, Rosenwald hosted a lunch for him.
How did it all begin?
Rosenwald told the audience gathered for the 1913 dedication of the Chicago YMCA for Colored Men “The negro should command himself to the highest standard of living and efficiency. This cannot be done by brooding over justice, nor by declaiming about it, but by living up to the full standard of American citizenship.” These statements later fed into the Rosenwald Fund, where Rosenwald, along with the guidance of Washington, sought to provide the opportunity of education to rural African Americans so that they could “ultimately attain a high place in the scale of society.” Rosenwald provided contributions to the physical schools. This was a new kind of fund aiding African American education development.
What did the Fund accomplish?
The Rosenwald school building program, The Rosenwald Fund, officially launched in 1917, and within the same year, the first school was constructed in Alabama. The Loachapoka School in Lee County was a one-teacher schoolhouse and constructed for the simple cost of $942, $300 of which was contributed by Rosenwald. As a result of this program, by 1932, over 5,000 rural African American schools with a student capacity of 663,615 were constructed across 15 states. After Rosenwald's death, Edwin Embree took over the fund from 1932 until 1948, when it was ultimately dissolved.
For full text and image citations reference the two linked PDFs in the website footer, at the bottom of the page.