- Lived
- 1864–1944
- Field
- Philanthropy
- From
- American
The story
Carrie Bamberger was born in Baltimore in 1864 to German Jewish immigrant parents. With her brother Louis Bamberger, her first husband Louis Frank and her second husband Felix Fuld, she helped build L. Bamberger and Company in Newark, New Jersey, into one of America’s great department stores. The family were active in Jewish charity in Newark, supporting Beth Israel Hospital, the YM-YWHA and Hadassah.
In June 1929, months before the stock market crash, she and Louis sold the store to Macy’s, shared a million dollars with 235 long-serving employees and set out to give away the rest. They first thought of founding a Jewish medical college in Newark, but the education reformer Abraham Flexner persuaded them to create something America lacked: an institute devoted purely to advanced research, where the best scholars could follow their curiosity free of teaching, administration and pressure for quick results.
The Institute for Advanced Study was incorporated in May 1930 with a founding gift of five million dollars; over time the siblings gave about eighteen million. In their letter to the first trustees, dated June 4, 1930, they wrote that in appointments and admissions “no account shall be taken, directly or indirectly, of race, religion, or sex.” Fuld served as vice-president for its first three years and as a trustee for life.
That principle mattered at once. Albert Einstein was one of the first two professors appointed in 1932, and after Hitler took power in 1933 the Institute became a lifeline for scholars fleeing Europe. Among its first members were the mathematician Emmy Noether, at a time when leading graduate schools did not admit women. Since then the Institute’s faculty and members have included 37 Nobel laureates and most winners of the Fields Medal. John von Neumann built one of the first stored-program computers there, whose design shaped modern computing.
Why it matters
The Institute she co-founded remains a world centre of basic research whose discoveries, from computing to mathematics and physics, benefit everyone.
About Carrie Bamberger Frank Fuld
Newark department-store partner who, with her brother Louis Bamberger, founded and funded Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, open to all regardless of race, religion or sex.
Sources
- Carrie Bamberger Frank Fuld Jewish Women’s Archive
- Mission and History Institute for Advanced Study
- Annual Report (founders’ letter extract) Institute for Advanced Study
- Caroline Bamberger Fuld Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.