(Jewish Daily Bulletin)
Julius Rosenwald, famous American Jewish philanthropist of Chicago, was the recipient of many congratulatory messages on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday which he celebrated to-day.
Julius Rosenwald was born in Springfield, III., August 12, 1862, the son of Samuel and Augusta (Hammerslough) Rosenwald. He was educated in the public schools of Springfield. On April 8, 1890 he was married to Augusta Nusbaum.
From 1879 to 1885 Julius Rosenwald was in New York with Hammer-slough Brothers, wholesale clothing dealers. In 1885 he went to Chicago where he became president of Rosenwald and Weil, a firm of clothing manufacturers. In 1895 he became vice-president and treasurer of Sears, Roebuck and Company and in 1910 he became president of this company.
During the World War, Mr. Rosenwald served as a member of the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense, having been appointed to this post by President Wilson. During 1919 he served in Washington as a member of the President’s Industrial Conference. In 1918 he was sent on a special mission to France for the Secretary of War.
In 1920-21 Mr. Rosenwald assisted Herbert C. Hoover in the Children’s Relief Fund. During the War he gave large sums for relief, chiefly in Eastern Europe, without discrimination as to race. In 1918 alone he contributed $1,000,000.
He contributed $450,000 and stimulated campaigns which resulted in providing eighteen Negro Y. M. C. A. buildings in sixteen cities. He also stimulated campaigns which resulted in 3,433 completed Negro rural school buildings in the Southern States, of which $2,600,000 was contributed by the Rosenwald Fund.
In December 1921, M. Rosenwald pledged a $21,000,000 private fortune to safeguard the interests of Sears, Roebuck and Co. during the period of post war business adjustment.
Mr. Rosenwald’s contributions also include $250,000 which he gave as an endowment fund for the Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes. He contributed $250,000 for land, building and equipment to house the organizations of the Jewish Charities in Chicago. With Mrs. Rosenwald he contributed $1,150,000 for new buildings for the University of Chicago.
In 1825 Mr. Rosenwald set a new standard of giving when he contributed $1,000,000 to the United Jewish Campaign.
Mr. Rosenwald is honorary president of the Jewish Charities of Chicago, honorary chairman of the Chicago Jewish Relief Committee for War Sufferers; he is honorary vice-president of the American Social Hygiene Association; vice-president of the Chicago Hebrew Institute; Chicago Sinai Congregation, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, The American Jewish Committee. He is a member of the advisory committee of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce. He is a governing member of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Historical Society. He is a life member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Museum of Natural History, the American Academy in Rome; a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation, University of Chicago, Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, the Baron de Hirsch Fund, Hull House.
He is chairman of the Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency, president of the School for Jewish Workers; honorary vice-chairman of the Citizens Committee of One Thousand for Law Enforcement, a member of the American Chemical Society, the National Advisory Council of One Hundred, the Committee on American Japanese Relations, the American Oriental Society, the Archaeological Institute of America, the Chicago Zoological Society, the Association of Arts and Industries.
The industrial museum, which he is helping to finance to the extent of $3,000,000, is another project adding to the richness of life in Chicago upon which Mr. Rosenwald has just embarked.
To discover the inspiration for this philanthropy one must know something of the personal ideals of Mr. Rosenwald. He is a simple, kindly man, who has not forgotten the days of adversity which he himself experienced as a young man. There burn in him those cardinal principles of justice and service to fellow man which were enunciated 2,500 years ago by the prophets.
Augusta Hammerslough Rosenwald, mother of Julius, held those ethical teachings very dear, and she inculcated them in her son in the mature years of prosperity as well as in the humbler days of his youth. The profound influence exerted by this mother is witnessed by the devotion with which they celebrate her birthday every year, though she passed away some years ago. On the twentieth of July, the anniversary of her birth, her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and nephews and nieces–some fifty in number–gather at the Rosenwald home in Ravinia, Ill., to honor her memory. It is to this old-world type of matriarch that much of Julius Rosenwald’s humanitarian service is due.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
