Born to Jewish immigrants, Julius Rosenwald rose to lead Sears, Roebuck & Company and turn it into the world's largest retailer. Born into slavery, Booker T. Washington became the founding principal of Tuskegee Institute. In 1912 the two men launched an ambitious program to partner with black communities across the segregated South to build public schools for African American children. This watershed moment in the history of philanthropy--one of the earliest collaborations between Jews and African Americans--drove dramatic improvement in African American educational attainment and fostered the generation who became the leaders and foot soldiers of the civil rights movement. Of the original 4,978 Rosenwald schools built between 1917 and 1937 across fifteen southern and border states, only about 500 survive. While some have been repurposed and a handful remain active schools, many remain unrestored and at risk of collapse. To tell this story visually, Andrew Feiler drove more than twenty-five thousand miles, photographed 105 schools, and interviewed dozens of former students, teachers, preservationists, and community leaders in all fifteen of the program states. A Better Life for their Children includes eighty-five duotone images that capture interiors and exteriors, schools restored and yet-to-be restored, and portraits of people with unique, compelling connections to these schools. Brief narratives written by Feiler accompany each photograph, telling the stories of Rosenwald schools' connections to the Trail of Tears, the Great Migration, the Tuskegee Airmen, Brown v. Board of Education, embezzlement, murder, and more. Beyond the photographic documentation, A Better Life for Their Children includes essays from three prominent voices. Congressman John Lewis, who attended a Rosenwald school in Alabama, provides an introduction; preservationist Jeanne Cyriaque has penned a history of the Rosenwald program; and Brent Leggs, director of African American Cultural Heritage at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, has written a plea for preservation that serves as an afterword.

"The stories people tell about themselves are interesting not only for the events and characters they describe but for something in the construction of the stories themselves. The ways in which individuals recount their histories--what they emphasize and omit, their stance as protagonists or victims, the relationship the story establishes between teller and audience--all shape what individuals can claim of their own lives. Personal stories are not merely a way of telling someone (or oneself) about one's life; they are the means by which identities may be fashioned."--from the Introduction In this provocative book, psychologists, anthropologists, and sociologists analyze interviews with a range of subjects--a minister who uses the death of his son to reaffirm his identity as a man of God, women who have given up their children at birth for adoption and who blame society for their action, Holocaust survivors, a victim of marital rape, and many others. Together these studies suggest a new way of thinking about autobiographical narratives: that these life stories play a significant role in the formation of identity, that the way they are told is shaped (and at times curtailed) by prevalent cultural norms, and that the stories--and at times the lives to which they relate--may be liberated from their psychic and social constraints if the social conditions of story telling can be critically engaged. Presenting a wide range of life stories, these studies demonstrate how "telling one's life" has the potential to clarify or mystify one's commitments and to animate or encumber one's future development.

"This is the first serious biography of the exuberant man who transformed the Sears, Roebuck company into the country's most important retailer. He was also one of the early 20th century's notable philanthropists.... The richness of primary evidence continually delights." -- Judith Sealander, author of Private Wealth and Public Life "[No] mere philanthropist [but a] subtle, stinging critic of our racial democracy." -- W. E. B. DuBois on Julius Rosenwald In this richly revealing biography of a major, but little-known, American businessman and philanthropist, Peter Ascoli brings to life a portrait of Julius Rosenwald, the man and his work. The son of first-generation German Jewish immigrants, Julius Rosenwald, known to his friends as "JR," apprenticed for his uncles, who were major clothing manufacturers in New York City. It would be as a men's clothing salesperson that JR would make his fateful encounter with Sears, Roebuck and Company, which he eventually fashioned into the greatest mail order firm in the world. He also founded Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. And in the American South Rosenwald helped support the building of the more than 5,300 schools that bore his name. Yet the charitable fund he created during World War I went out of existence in 1948 at his expressed wish. Ascoli provides a fascinating account of Rosenwald's meteoric rise in American business, but he also portrays a man devoted to family and with a desire to help his community that led to a lifelong devotion to philanthropy. He tells about Rosenwald's important philanthropic activities, especially those connected with the Rosenwald schools and Booker T. Washington, and later through the Rosenwald Fund. Ascoli's account of Rosenwald is an inspiring story of hard work and success, and of giving back to the nation in which he prospered.

The portrait of a humble retail magnate whose visionary ideas about charitable giving transformed the practice of philanthropy in America and beyond Julius Rosenwald (1862–1932) rose from modest means as the son of a peddler to meteoric wealth at the helm of Sears, Roebuck. Yet his most important legacy stands not upon his business acumen but on the pioneering changes he introduced to the practice of philanthropy. While few now recall Rosenwald’s name—he refused to have it attached to the buildings, projects, or endowments he supported—his passionate support of Jewish and African American causes continues to influence lives to this day. This biography of Julius Rosenwald explores his attitudes toward his own wealth and his distinct ideas about philanthropy, positing an intimate connection between his Jewish consciousness and his involvement with African Americans. The book shines light on his belief in the importance of giving in the present to make an impact on the future, and on his encouragement of beneficiaries to become partners in community institutions and projects. Rosenwald emerges from the pages as a compassionate man whose generosity and wisdom transformed the practice of philanthropy itself.

The cocreator of the Washington Post’s “Made by History” blog reveals how the rise of conservative talk radio gave us a Republican Party incapable of governing and paved the way for Donald Trump. America’s long road to the Trump presidency began on August 1, 1988, when, desperate for content to save AM radio, top media executives stumbled on a new format that would turn the political world upside down. They little imagined that in the coming years their brainchild would polarize the country and make it nearly impossible to govern. Rush Limbaugh, an enormously talented former disc jockey—opinionated, brash, and unapologetically conservative—pioneered a pathbreaking infotainment program that captured the hearts of an audience no media executive knew existed. Limbaugh’s listeners yearned for a champion to punch back against those maligning their values. Within a decade, this format would grow from fifty-nine stations to over one thousand, keeping millions of Americans company as they commuted, worked, and shouted back at their radios. The concept pioneered by Limbaugh was quickly copied by cable news and digital media. Radio hosts form a deep bond with their audience, which gives them enormous political power. Unlike elected representatives, however, they must entertain their audience or watch their ratings fall. Talk radio boosted the Republican agenda in the 1990s, but two decades later, escalation in the battle for the airwaves pushed hosts toward ever more conservative, outrageous, and hyperbolic content. Donald Trump borrowed conservative radio hosts’ playbook and gave Republican base voters the kind of pugnacious candidate they had been demanding for decades. By 2016, a political force no one intended to create had completely transformed American politics.

The True Story of the Rosenwald Schools

Based on Laurie Rosenwald's popular workshop, How to Make Mistakes On Purpose reveals an intuitive, entertaining way to come up with truly original ideas. Three generations of humans have now been molded into results-oriented workers who cannot mess up, and therefore may never innovate either. Shared software, skills, and experiences equal no surprises. Surrounded by the unwavering, reliable results made possible by a machine, we all marinate in this ubiquitous cybersauce. Behold! Thousands of shiny new apps, sites, products, and services that look, feel, and are essentially the same. Because computers don’t make mistakes. Chance is the natural foil to the digital. We combine both for originality. This makes for the kind of exciting, hopeful future we want. We embrace technology but need to slap it around a bit to get someplace new. Human error sparks connections. In a relaxed situation where one’s hypercritical demons are AWOL, the snap, crackle, pop of brainstorms happen all around us. A fresh, colorful guide to discovery, with clearly marked directions and witty prompts, this is a book about living a productive, individualistic life. Whatever your job, it gives you a way to zig while everyone around you can only zag. It will also make you laugh along the way.

The Rosenwald schools, scores of which still stand, exemplified the ideal educational environment - designed for efficiency, making full use of natural light to protect children's eyesight, and providing sufficient space for learning. Ironically, these schools, which represented the social centers of their African American communities, also helped to set standards for white schools.

Sometimes the craziest, funniest, wackiest ideas are simply the truest. "GO PURPLE!" advises Laurie Rosenwald in this original graphics-filled scrap-booky masterpiece of enjoyment aimed at teen girls who have grown way out of American girl, and may even feel cynical about Gossip Girl! "Of course you should keep recycling and wearing vegtarian sneakers and organic cotton underpants, drinking fair trade mochachinos, and using rhubarb/green tea conditioner . . . . it's just that I'm tired of all this green marketing!" She tells her own stories (Kicked Out of Yoga!) advises (Great comebacks to try!), interacts, makes mistakes, does a lot of art, and works with many a typeface in this one-of-a kind no-holds-barred take on modern life for today's young women.