Julius Rosenwald, a child of Jewish German immigrants, was born in 1862 while Abraham Lincoln was President. His home was only a block from Lincoln’s in Springfield, Illinois.
With only two years of high school, Rosenwald traveled to New York City and became an apprentice to his uncles who were clothing manufacturers. After learning everything he could from his uncles Julius set up his own company specializing in men’s ready-to-wear suits.
Back in Illinois, the Sears and Roebuck and Co. had come to life, expanding like crazy. Entrepreneur, Richard Sears, was an amazing idea-man and promoter but he lacked the necessary organizational skills needed for what he has created. Catalogs were being mailed to hundreds of thousands homes in the United States and orders were flooding in. There was no way to keep up, so the shipping-room was in chaos.
After including more mens’ suits in his catalog than he could supply, Sears enlisted Rosenwald to provide them. He was so impressed with the way the Rosenwald’s company operated he offered him a job.
This was Rosenwald’s big break and it turned out to be a break for all of the United States.
Julius Rosenwald was soon establishing order out of the chaos. When Sears offered him 25% of the company, he borrowed from his family to swing the deal and before he knew it, he was President of Sears, Roebuck and Co.
Sears was what Amazon is today. Rosenwald, like Jeff Bezos, had the vision of delivering anything in the marketplace to customers who placed orders. Rather than the Internet, the big Sears, Roebuck Catalog provided almost endless surfing material. When you read the terms in vintage Sears catalogs, you realize that Rosenwald, like Bezos, knew that a good return policy was important.
Since products included everything from diamond rings, to shotguns and complete houses, one wonders how all of this was worked out. Only a organizational genius like Julius Rosenwald could establish the systems. At the time, he had the help of the U. S. Postal Service and the shipping agents of the U. S. Railway System.
With great wealth Rosenwald’s became a generous philanthropist. After reading Up from Slavery, he developed a close friendship with Booker T. Washington. This led to the establishment of the Rosenwald Fund to build and upgrade sorely underfunded Afro-American schools.
By reading the School Board minutes available on Martin Digital History, one can see where and when the Rosenwald Fund helped out locally.
https://www.martindigitalhistory.org/collections/show/42
My last History Lady blog included photographs of the Rosenwald School built in Stuart. The above newspaper article explains the ways in which the communities that received Rosenwald Funds were required to contribute.
It is much like Habitat for Humanity today: Those who obtain homes must help to build them.
