Julius Rosenwald
| Julius Rosenwald | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
August 12, 1862 Springfield, Illinois |
| Died | January 6, 1932 (aged 69) Highland Park, Illinois |
| Resting place | Rosehill Cemetery |
| Nationality | American |
| Net worth | USD $80 million at the time of his death (approximately $1.4 billion inflation adjusted, equivalent to 1/726th of US GNP) |
| Spouse(s) | Augusta Nusbaum |
| Children | Lessing J. Rosenwald, Adele Deutsch Levy, Edith Stern, Marion Ascoli, William Rosenwald |
Julius Rosenwald (August 12, 1862 – January 6, 1932) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He is best known as a part-owner and leader of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and for establishing the Rosenwald Fund, which donated millions in matching funds to support the education of African American children in the rural South, as well as other philanthropic causes in the first half of the 20th century. He was also the principal founder and backer for the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, to which he gave more than $5 million and served as President from 1927 to 1932.
Julius Rosenwald was born in 1862 to the clothier Samuel Rosenwald and his wife Augusta Hammerslough Rosenwald, a Jewish immigrant couple from Germany. He was born and raised just a few blocks from the Abraham Lincoln residence in Springfield, Illinois, during Lincoln's Presidency of the United States.
By his sixteenth year, Rosenwald was apprenticed by his parents to his uncles in New York City to learn the clothing trades. While in New York, he befriended Henry Goldman and Henry Morgenthau, Sr. With his younger brother Morris, Rosenwald started a clothing manufacturing company. They were ruined by a recession in 1885.
Rosenwald had heard about other clothiers who had begun to manufacture clothing according to standardized sizes from data collected during the American Civil War. He decided to try the system but to move his manufacturing facility closer to the rural population that he anticipated would be his market. He and his brother moved to Chicago, Illinois. Once in Chicago, the Rosenwald brothers enlisted more help from a cousin, Julius Weil; together they founded Rosenwald and Weil Clothiers.
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