**Chap­ter Six­teen: Julius Rosen­wald**

In 1862, Samuel Rosen­wald left Europe with hopes for a bet­ter life, unaware his fam­i­ly would soon live near a future pres­i­dent and face the loom­ing threat of the Ku Klux Klan. As Samuel and his wife, Augus­ta, wel­comed their son Ben­jamin, they faced per­son­al strug­gles, hop­ing their new child, Julius, would thrive. Julius, born at the Lin­coln fam­i­ly’s doorstep, would unknow­ing­ly wit­ness sig­nif­i­cant events in his ear­ly child­hood, includ­ing Pres­i­dent Lin­col­n’s assas­si­na­tion.

Julius, or JR as he pre­ferred, left high school after two years to work in the New York gar­ment indus­try. Here, he excelled in sell­ing suits for var­i­ous occa­sions. Upon mar­ry­ing Augus­ta Nus­baum in 1890, the cou­ple took a train to Nia­gara Falls for their hon­ey­moon, mark­ing the start of their life togeth­er.

Par­al­lel to JR’s jour­ney, a young Richard Sears, raised in rur­al Min­neso­ta, cre­at­ed a suc­cess­ful watch-sell­ing ven­ture from an unclaimed ship­ment at a rail­road sta­tion. His busi­ness flour­ished, prompt­ing him to relo­cate to Chica­go for greater oppor­tu­ni­ties. Sears dis­cov­ered the poten­tial of mail-order sell­ing and craft­ed a cat­a­log that appealed to Amer­i­can con­sumers, estab­lish­ing what would become Sears, Roe­buck & Co., a giant in retail his­to­ry.

In 1895, Richard Sears faced orga­ni­za­tion­al chal­lenges that hin­dered his business’s poten­tial. Seek­ing help, he approached Aaron Nus­baum, Augus­ta’s broth­er, who had new­ly found rich­es from run­ning con­ces­sions at the World’s Columbian Expo­si­tion. Nus­baum opt­ed for a part­ner­ship with Sears, and Julius Rosen­wald decid­ed to invest in the com­pa­ny, which he had ties to through his exist­ing busi­ness deal­ings with Sears.

As the com­pa­ny grew, how­ev­er, Rosen­wald and Nus­baum faced the neces­si­ty of remain­ing hid­den behind the busi­ness due to anti­se­mit­ic sen­ti­ments in Amer­i­ca. Despite this dis­crim­i­na­tion, Sears, Roe­buck & Co. thrived, pro­vid­ing goods to rur­al com­mu­ni­ties that lacked retail options. The com­pa­ny built a vast ship­ping facil­i­ty in Chica­go, respond­ing to soar­ing demand.

Ten­sions arose as Richard Sears fell ill, leav­ing JR in charge of the com­pa­ny, which pro­pelled him into wealth. Unlike many, he faced the chal­lenge of how to uti­lize his new­found for­tune. JR and Gussie’s phil­an­thropic endeav­ors began, align­ing them with promi­nent reform­ers of the Pro­gres­sive Era. Amidst per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al suc­cess, JR was on the verge of insti­gat­ing sig­nif­i­cant changes in Amer­i­ca.