Schools of Hope: How Julius Rosenwald Helped Change African American Education by Norman H. Finkelstein (review)

Inspired by the teaching of Rabbi Emil Hirsch, Sears, Roebuck president Julius Rosenwald developed a personal philosophy of philanthropy and expanded on his early career goal of making $15,000 a year—keeping a third for living expenses, saving a third for the future, and giving a third to charity. A successful businessman at the dawn of the twentieth century, he looked for worthy causes and found an ideal collaboration with Booker T. Washington, whose philosophy of self-help leading to social advancement meshed well with his own. Working at first through Washington’s Tuskegee Institute and later through his own foundation, Rosenwald established schools for black children throughout the South, setting strict expectations for matching funds and long-term management through the extant public school systems. Finkelstein examines the philanthropic activities of the man readers may have met in Carole Boston Weatherford’s fictional Dear Mr. Rosenwald (BCCB 10/06). This work delves more deeply into Rosenwald’s other charitable work and ably contextualizes the school-building program within the “separate but equal” social mandate that was then the law of the land. Plenty of black and white photos and architectural plans provide a vivid picture of the before-and-after state of post–Civil War black schools, and they also bring readers up to date on current preservation efforts. Index, citations, and print and online sources are included.