- Person
- Julius Rosenwald
- Lived
- 1862–1932
- Field
- Retail & philanthropy
- From
- American
The story
In the decades after the First World War, hundreds of thousands of Black Americans left the South for northern cities in the Great Migration, and many settled in Chicago. Pervasive racial segregation confined them to a few neighbourhoods on the city's South Side, which became tremendously overcrowded. Julius Rosenwald, chairman of Sears, Roebuck, had already supported Black education in the South and funded YMCAs for Black communities. In the late 1920s he turned to the problem of housing in his own city.
In 1929 he and his nephew, the architect Ernest Grunsfeld, who also designed Chicago's Adler Planetarium, built the Michigan Boulevard Garden Apartments at 47th Street and Michigan Avenue. It was one of Chicago's largest philanthropic housing developments. Covering a whole square block, the buildings enclosed a large landscaped central courtyard. The development offered 421 units of sound housing for African Americans at modest rents. Along the 47th Street side were 14 stores, four of them occupied by Black-owned businesses, and the complex also included a nursery school.
Rosenwald invested $2.7 million, a philanthropic investment rather than a commercial one, and received only a 2.4 per cent return during the first seven years.
The complex was one of the first American housing developments to mix residential, commercial and social uses, combining homes, shops, banking facilities and childcare in one place. The Archbridge Institute notes that this design foreshadowed much more recent approaches to urban development. It was completed only three years before Rosenwald's death in 1932.
The buildings still stand, now known as the Rosenwald Courts Apartments. For generations they offered Black families in Chicago safe and dignified homes at a time when such housing was very hard to find, and they remain a landmark of Rosenwald's belief that business skill and philanthropy could work together to repair the damage done by discrimination.
Why it matters
The apartments gave hundreds of Black families safe, affordable homes and showed how housing, shops and childcare could be combined to build community.
About Julius Rosenwald
Clothier who turned Sears, Roebuck into America’s great mail-order retailer, then helped build nearly 5,000 schools for Black children across the segregated South.
More about Julius Rosenwald
- Julius Rosenwald helped launch county farm advisersJulius Rosenwald gave $1,000 grants to the first 100 US counties to hire County Extension Agents, helping the Department of Agriculture launch a valuable rural programme.
- Julius Rosenwald founded Chicago’s science museumJulius Rosenwald was the principal founder of Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, giving it over $5 million and serving as its president from 1927 to 1932.
- Rosenwald fellowships backed Marian Anderson and HughesFrom 1928 the Rosenwald Fund gave over $400,000 in fellowships to rising artists and scholars, most of them Black, including Marian Anderson, Langston Hughes and James Baldwin.
- Julius Rosenwald helped the young NAACPJulius Rosenwald gave several thousand dollars to help establish the NAACP and found a venue for its 1912 Chicago meeting, at his own synagogue, Temple Sinai.
- Julius Rosenwald built 5,000 schools for Black childrenSears president Julius Rosenwald partnered with Booker T. Washington to build about 5,000 Rosenwald Schools for Black children in the segregated South, educating some 600,000 students.
- Julius Rosenwald gave Sears workers a share of the profitsIn 1916 Julius Rosenwald and Albert Loeb launched one of the first comprehensive profit-sharing plans at Sears, open to every employee; 90% of workers joined.
- Julius Rosenwald gave away $687,000 on his 50th birthdayTo mark his 50th birthday in 1912, Julius Rosenwald gave away $687,000, including $250,000 for the University of Chicago, and kept giving about $500,000 a year.
- Julius Rosenwald funded 25 YMCAs for Black AmericansJulius Rosenwald offered $25,000 to any city that raised $75,000 for a YMCA for African Americans; between 1911 and 1933 he helped build 25 YMCAs in 24 cities.
Sources
- Julius Rosenwald Wikipedia
- Magnanimous Merchant: Julius Rosenwald American Business History Center
- Julius Rosenwald National Park Service
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.