Author : Mary S. Hoffschwelle
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 35,92 MB
Release : 2014-07-30
Category : African Americans
ISBN : 9780813060330
The Rosenwald schools, scores of which still stand, exemplified the ideal educational environment - designed for efficiency, making full use of natural light to protect children's eyesight, and providing sufficient space for learning. Ironically, these schools, which represented the social centers of their African American communities, also helped to set standards for white schools.
Author : Stephanie Deutsch
Publisher : Northwestern University Press
Page : 249 pages
File Size : 16,12 MB
Release : 2011-12-30
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0810127903
Discusses the friendship between Booker T. Wahington, founder of the Tuskegee Institute, and Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck and Company and how, through their friendship, they were able to build five thousand schools for African Americans in the Southern states.
Author : Andrew Feiler
Publisher :
Page : 136 pages
File Size : 43,79 MB
Release : 2021-02
Category : Education
ISBN : 9780820358413
Born to Jewish immigrants, Julius Rosenwald rose to lead Sears, Roebuck & Company and turn it into the world's largest retailer. Born into slavery, Booker T. Washington became the founding principal of Tuskegee Institute. In 1912 the two men launched an ambitious program to partner with black communities across the segregated South to build public schools for African American children. This watershed moment in the history of philanthropy--one of the earliest collaborations between Jews and African Americans--drove dramatic improvement in African American educational attainment and fostered the generation who became the leaders and foot soldiers of the civil rights movement. Of the original 4,978 Rosenwald schools built between 1917 and 1937 across fifteen southern and border states, only about 500 survive. While some have been repurposed and a handful remain active schools, many remain unrestored and at risk of collapse. To tell this story visually, Andrew Feiler drove more than twenty-five thousand miles, photographed 105 schools, and interviewed dozens of former students, teachers, preservationists, and community leaders in all fifteen of the program states. A Better Life for their Children includes eighty-five duotone images that capture interiors and exteriors, schools restored and yet-to-be restored, and portraits of people with unique, compelling connections to these schools. Brief narratives written by Feiler accompany each photograph, telling the stories of Rosenwald schools' connections to the Trail of Tears, the Great Migration, the Tuskegee Airmen, Brown v. Board of Education, embezzlement, murder, and more. Beyond the photographic documentation, A Better Life for Their Children includes essays from three prominent voices. Congressman John Lewis, who attended a Rosenwald school in Alabama, provides an introduction; preservationist Jeanne Cyriaque has penned a history of the Rosenwald program; and Brent Leggs, director of African American Cultural Heritage at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, has written a plea for preservation that serves as an afterword.
Author : Peter M. Ascoli
Publisher : Indiana University Press
Page : 471 pages
File Size : 42,23 MB
Release : 2006-05-23
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0253112044
"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 20th century's notable philanthropists.... The richness of primary evidence continually delights." -- Judith Sealander, author of Private Wealth and Public Life "[No] mere philanthropist [but a] subtle, stinging critic of our racial democracy." -- W. E. B. DuBois on Julius Rosenwald In this richly revealing biography of a major, but little-known, American businessman and philanthropist, Peter Ascoli brings to life a portrait of Julius Rosenwald, the man and his work. The son of first-generation German Jewish immigrants, Julius Rosenwald, known to his friends as "JR," apprenticed for his uncles, who were major clothing manufacturers in New York City. It would be as a men's clothing salesperson that JR would make his fateful encounter with Sears, Roebuck and Company, which he eventually fashioned into the greatest mail order firm in the world. He also founded Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. And in the American South Rosenwald helped support the building of the more than 5,300 schools that bore his name. Yet the charitable fund he created during World War I went out of existence in 1948 at his expressed wish. Ascoli provides a fascinating account of Rosenwald's meteoric rise in American business, but he also portrays a man devoted to family and with a desire to help his community that led to a lifelong devotion to philanthropy. He tells about Rosenwald's important philanthropic activities, especially those connected with the Rosenwald schools and Booker T. Washington, and later through the Rosenwald Fund. Ascoli's account of Rosenwald is an inspiring story of hard work and success, and of giving back to the nation in which he prospered.
Author : Aisha M. Johnson-Jones
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 121 pages
File Size : 22,36 MB
Release : 2019-09-17
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 1538103095
The African American Struggle for Library Equality: The Untold Story of the Julius Rosenwald Fund Library Program unveils the almost forgotten philanthropic efforts of Julius Rosenwald, former president of Sears, Roebuck, Co. and an elite business man. Rosenwald simply desired to improve, “the well-being of mankind” through access to education. Many people are familiar with Mr. Rosenwald as the founder of the Julius Rosenwald Fund that established more than 5,300 rural schools in 15 Southern states during the period 1917-1938. However, there is another major piece of the puzzle, the Julius Rosenwald Fund Library Program. That program established more than 10,000 school, college, and public libraries, funded library science programs that trained African American librarians, and made evident the need for libraries to be supported by local governments. The African American Struggle for Library Equality is the first comprehensive history of the Julius Rosenwald Fund Library Program to be published. The book reveals a new understanding of library practices of the early 20th century. Through original research and use of existing literature, Aisha Johnson Jones exposes historic library practices that discriminated against blacks, and the necessary remedies the Julius Rosenwald Fund Library Program implemented to cure this injustice, which ultimately influenced other philanthropists like Andrew Carnegie and Bill Gates (the Gates Foundation has a library program) as well as organizations like the American Library Association.
Author : James D. Anderson
Publisher : Univ of North Carolina Press
Page : 383 pages
File Size : 14,63 MB
Release : 2010-01-27
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0807898880
James Anderson critically reinterprets the history of southern black education from Reconstruction to the Great Depression. By placing black schooling within a political, cultural, and economic context, he offers fresh insights into black commitment to education, the peculiar significance of Tuskegee Institute, and the conflicting goals of various philanthropic groups, among other matters. Initially, ex-slaves attempted to create an educational system that would support and extend their emancipation, but their children were pushed into a system of industrial education that presupposed black political and economic subordination. This conception of education and social order--supported by northern industrial philanthropists, some black educators, and most southern school officials--conflicted with the aspirations of ex-slaves and their descendants, resulting at the turn of the century in a bitter national debate over the purposes of black education. Because blacks lacked economic and political power, white elites were able to control the structure and content of black elementary, secondary, normal, and college education during the first third of the twentieth century. Nonetheless, blacks persisted in their struggle to develop an educational system in accordance with their own needs and desires.
Author : Hasia R. Diner
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 255 pages
File Size : 22,74 MB
Release : 2017-10-24
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0300231326
The portrait of a humble retail magnate whose visionary ideas about charitable giving transformed the practice of philanthropy in America and beyond Julius Rosenwald (1862–1932) rose from modest means as the son of a peddler to meteoric wealth at the helm of Sears, Roebuck. Yet his most important legacy stands not upon his business acumen but on the pioneering changes he introduced to the practice of philanthropy. While few now recall Rosenwald’s name—he refused to have it attached to the buildings, projects, or endowments he supported—his passionate support of Jewish and African American causes continues to influence lives to this day. This biography of Julius Rosenwald explores his attitudes toward his own wealth and his distinct ideas about philanthropy, positing an intimate connection between his Jewish consciousness and his involvement with African Americans. The book shines light on his belief in the importance of giving in the present to make an impact on the future, and on his encouragement of beneficiaries to become partners in community institutions and projects. Rosenwald emerges from the pages as a compassionate man whose generosity and wisdom transformed the practice of philanthropy itself.
Author : Mary S. Hoffschwelle
Publisher :
Page : 401 pages
File Size : 44,86 MB
Release : 2006
Category : History
ISBN : 9780813029573
The Rosenwald schools, scores of which still stand, exemplified the ideal educational environment - designed for efficiency, making full use of natural light to protect children's eyesight, and providing sufficient space for learning. Ironically, these schools, which represented the social centers of their African American communities, also helped to set standards for white schools.
Author : Carole Boston Weatherford
Publisher :
Page : 40 pages
File Size : 10,88 MB
Release : 2006
Category : African Americans
ISBN :
Young Ovella rejoices as her community comes together to raise money and build a much-needed school in the 1920s, with matching funds from the president of Sears, Roebuck, and Company and support from Professor James of the Normal School.
Author : Betty J. Reed
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 249 pages
File Size : 49,87 MB
Release : 2015-03-21
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0786484128
A century ago, the Brevard Rosenwald School in Transylvania County, North Carolina, opened its doors to African American students from the community and the surrounding area. It was a microcosm of the community it served; teachers and pupils lived on the same streets, shopped in the same stores, worshiped at the same churches, and teachers and parents served on the same committees, confronted similar social and economic problems, and sought each other's advice about issues in daily life. This book is a history of the school, with special attention given to the years 1920 to 1966, and its attempts to improve the education of African Americans in the South. It also focuses on the school's beginnings, development, significance to the community, closing, and the integration process and the Rosenwald community today. The author also presents narratives from former students about their experiences and educational goals, pursuits and accomplishments at the school and later in their lives.
