[ROSENWALD opens
in Cleveland on Friday October 23rd exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]
Review by Bob Ignizio
How many of you reading this ever wondered what the guy who
ran Sears Roebuck was like, or what he did when he wasn’t running a department
store? Probably not many. But as the documentary film ROSENWALD shows, his story is one well worth hearing. Julius
Rosenwald, son of Jewish immigrants from Germany, was born in 1862 in
Springfield, Illinois. He took up the family trade of selling clothing, and
through a mix of fortune and business acumen found himself in a position to buy
into the Sears-Roebuck company when Roebuck wanted out.
Under the direction of Richard Sears, a consummate salesman,
and the more practical Rosenwald, Sears-Roebuck does extremely well. When Sears
resigned his position in 1908 leaving Rosenwald in charge, the company soon
became the largest retailer in the country. They sold just about anything an
American of the time could want from chickens to houses.
