Julius Rosenwald (1862-1932), the Illinois philanthropist who headed the great mail order and department store dynasty, Sears, Roebuck and Company, contributed consistently, through Tuskegee Institute, to building and promoting African-American institutions in the South.
In 1895, Rosenwald purchased a one-quarter interest in Sears, Roebuck, at that time strictly a mail-order company. In 1910, as company president, he expanded the company's mail-order business beyond watches and jewelry, to include a wider variety of consumer products, capitalizing especially on the demand for goods in rural areas. Propelled by awareness that automobiles were going to reduce mail-order sales and make it possible to operate department stores profitably in many more areas, Rosenwald in 1925 branched out into direct retailing. By the time of the Great Depression in 1929, Rosenwald, now chairman of the board, oversaw a chain of 324 retail stores. (INTRO NOTE Retailing)
Advertisements for the Sears, Roebuck catalog, which remained popular, appear in the February 1926 issue of Household Magazine and the February 1926 issue of Good Housekeeping Magazine.
An enlightened employer, Rosenwald was socially conscious in many different areas. A personal friend of Booker T. Washington's, he sat on Tuskegee Institute's Board of Trustees. (DETAIL NOTE National Negro Business League) Acting on the belief that education was the best way to improve the difficult economic situation of blacks, he established a fund, administered for a number of years through Tuskegee, devoted to the erection of modern school buildings ("Rosenwald schools") for African American students living in rural southern communities from Maryland to Texas.