Chap­ter 16 details the life of Julius Rosen­wald, a fig­ure whose ear­ly expe­ri­ences and lat­er suc­cess would leave a last­ing impact on Amer­i­can soci­ety. Born in 1862 to Samuel and Augus­ta Rosen­wald, Julius came into the world at a piv­otal moment in his­to­ry. His father, Samuel, had emi­grat­ed from Europe with hopes of a bet­ter life, unaware that his fam­i­ly would even­tu­al­ly face the strug­gles of liv­ing near a future U.S. pres­i­dent and encoun­ter­ing the grow­ing threat of the Ku Klux Klan. The Rosen­wald fam­i­ly set­tled in the Unit­ed States, and Julius was born amidst sig­nif­i­cant his­tor­i­cal events, includ­ing the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Lin­coln, which would shape his for­ma­tive years. Raised in a Quak­er house­hold that empha­sized hard work and sim­plic­i­ty, Julius was exposed to the ideals of jus­tice and social equal­i­ty from a young age, which influ­enced his lat­er phil­an­thropic efforts.

Julius, known affec­tion­ate­ly as JR, left high school after just two years and entered the work­force, find­ing suc­cess in New York’s gar­ment indus­try. It was here that he honed his skills in busi­ness, par­tic­u­lar­ly in sell­ing suits for var­i­ous occa­sions, which marked the begin­ning of his pro­fes­sion­al jour­ney. In 1890, Julius mar­ried Augus­ta Nus­baum, and togeth­er, they embarked on their hon­ey­moon to Nia­gara Falls, a moment that marked the start of their shared life. As they set­tled into their new life, Augus­tus’ broth­er Aaron Nus­baum, who had amassed wealth through run­ning con­ces­sions at the World’s Columbian Expo­si­tion, played a crit­i­cal role in the future suc­cess of Julius. Mean­while, Richard Sears, a young man from rur­al Min­neso­ta, was begin­ning his own busi­ness ven­ture. Sears found suc­cess by cre­at­ing a mail-order watch busi­ness that would even­tu­al­ly grow into the influ­en­tial Sears, Roe­buck & Co., rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing Amer­i­can retail.

By 1895, Richard Sears faced chal­lenges that imped­ed his company’s growth, and he sought help from Aaron Nus­baum, who agreed to part­ner with him. Julius Rosen­wald, who was already involved in busi­ness deal­ings with Sears, decid­ed to invest in the grow­ing com­pa­ny. Despite the suc­cess of Sears, Roe­buck & Co., Julius and Aaron were forced to stay out of the pub­lic eye, as ris­ing anti­semitism in Amer­i­ca pre­vent­ed them from ful­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in the company’s pub­lic image. Nonethe­less, their com­pa­ny flour­ished, offer­ing essen­tial goods to rur­al com­mu­ni­ties that lacked access to retail stores. The company’s growth prompt­ed them to build a mas­sive ship­ping facil­i­ty in Chica­go to meet increas­ing demand, fur­ther solid­i­fy­ing their posi­tion as a lead­ing play­er in the retail indus­try. This peri­od marked the begin­ning of a dra­mat­ic shift in the Amer­i­can retail land­scape, with Sears, Roe­buck & Co. becom­ing a house­hold name in the U.S.

When Richard Sears fell ill, Julius Rosen­wald was thrust into a lead­er­ship role, which ulti­mate­ly led to his sig­nif­i­cant wealth. With new­found rich­es came a chal­lenge: how would Julius use his for­tune for the greater good? Togeth­er with his wife Gussie, Julius turned to phil­an­thropy, ded­i­cat­ing them­selves to caus­es that would improve the lives of dis­ad­van­taged com­mu­ni­ties. Their char­i­ta­ble efforts aligned with the val­ues of the Pro­gres­sive Era, a peri­od marked by wide­spread social reform, focus­ing on edu­ca­tion, health­care, and civ­il rights for mar­gin­al­ized com­mu­ni­ties. Julius’ involve­ment in var­i­ous ini­tia­tives helped address sys­temic issues such as inequal­i­ty and seg­re­ga­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the South­ern Unit­ed States. His con­tri­bu­tions were par­tic­u­lar­ly impact­ful in edu­ca­tion, where his phil­an­thropic endeav­ors led to the estab­lish­ment of thou­sands of schools for Black chil­dren in rur­al areas. Julius and Gussie’s gen­eros­i­ty and com­mit­ment to social change cre­at­ed a lega­cy that would con­tin­ue to influ­ence Amer­i­can soci­ety for years to come.

As the years passed, Julius Rosen­wald became more deeply involved in the advance­ment of racial and social jus­tice, despite the chal­lenges posed by the per­va­sive racism of the time. His work was not with­out its dif­fi­cul­ties, as he faced con­stant obsta­cles from the pre­vail­ing social struc­tures that sought to main­tain seg­re­ga­tion and dis­crim­i­na­tion. Yet, his ded­i­ca­tion to improv­ing the lives of oth­ers, regard­less of race or back­ground, remained stead­fast. Julius’ impact extend­ed far beyond his wealth, as he used his posi­tion to advo­cate for mean­ing­ful change in the areas of edu­ca­tion, eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty, and racial equal­i­ty. His phil­an­thropic lega­cy con­tin­ues to inspire future gen­er­a­tions, serv­ing as a pow­er­ful exam­ple of how indi­vid­u­als can use their resources and influ­ence to cre­ate last­ing social change. Through his con­tri­bu­tions, Julius Rosen­wald demon­strat­ed that one per­son­’s ded­i­ca­tion to jus­tice and equal­i­ty can indeed trans­form the lives of thou­sands, leav­ing an indeli­ble mark on Amer­i­can soci­ety.