Often overlooked in those nostalgic chronicles was the man who bore much of the responsibility for building the company into a paragon of U.S. retailing. The initial public offering in 1906 , the first for a U.S. retailer, made millionaires of both Sears and Rosenwald. Around that time, he was invited by the famed African American educator and author Booker T. Washington to visit the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute that Washington had founded in Alabama. Rosenwald toured the school, joined the board and followed Washington’s suggestion that he donate money to assist six nearby rural African American communities in building schoolhouses. A 2009 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago estimated that a one-third increase in completed schooling by African American students in the region was attributable to Rosenwald schools.

Source: Washington Post January 21, 2019 18:07 UTC