
Julius Rosenwald was one of several northern philanthropists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who supported both elementary and higher education and teacher training for blacks. Important in Alabama were George Peabody, who established the Peabody Educational Fund in 1867, and Anna T. Jeanes, who established what is commonly remembered as the Jeanes Fund in 1907. Rosenwald met Tuskegee Institute founder Booker T. Washington in late 1911 when Washington was the keynote speaker at a gathering of civic leaders in Chicago. Rosenwald, who introduced Washington to the crowd, was impressed with Washington's cause and soon signed on as a trustee of the Tuskegee Institute, a position he continued to hold after Washington's death.
In 1914, Rosenwald helped fund the building of six schools in Alabama with a $25,000 grant to Washington and Tuskegee, which served as the base of operations for the project. The first to open its doors was a frame building in Loachapoka, Lee County. The other five were in Notasulga and Brownsville (Macon County), Chewacla (Lee County), and Big Zion and Madison Park (Montgomery County). The schools typically had a single teacher for all grades, and instruction generally focused on a basic curriculum of reading, writing, and arithmetic augmented by shop and vocational skills, including farming, gardening, dress making, and principals of personal hygiene.

Of the monies expended on the Rosenwald schools over the years, 64 percent came from tax revenues, 17 percent was donated by African Americans, 15 percent was contributed by Rosenwald and the Rosenwald Fund, and just over 4 percent came from other private white donors. In Alabama, local residents contributed what they could, and some, like Peter Alba, a Civil War hero and philanthropist from Mobile County, donated land. The Grand Bay School, built on Alba's property, consisted of five large rooms, three of which were used for primary through seventh-grade classes. The other two rooms served as living quarters for the teachers.

Some of the Rosewald schools in Alabama still stand. The Elmore County Training School, built in west Wetumpka in 1924, was made of brick and fared better than most Rosenwald schools. It currently houses the Elmore County Black History Museum. In Notasulga, the Rosenwald school and associated Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church were added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage and have been restored. Some surviving structures, such as the New Hope Rosenwald School in Chambers County, have already been added to the National Register of Historic Places (2001). All that remains of the original Grand Bay school building is a chunk of stone and mortar about 2 by 3 feet in size. Overall, preservation efforts remain haphazard and are usually dependent on committed local citizens, often alumni of the schools. Various efforts exist to document and catalog the Rosenwald schools, including one by the Alabama Historical Commission, several other states, and especially the Rosenwald Schools Initiative of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Additional Resources
Ascoli, Peter. Julius Rosenwald: The Man Who Built Sears, Roebuck and Advanced the Cause of Black Education in the American South. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.
Additional Resources
Ascoli, Peter. Julius Rosenwald: The Man Who Built Sears, Roebuck and Advanced the Cause of Black Education in the American South. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.
Embree, Edwin R., and Julia Waxman. Investment in People: The Story of the Julius Rosenwald Fund. New York City: Harper & Brothers, 1949.
Hoffschwelle, Mary, and John David Smith, et al. Rosenwald Schools of the American South. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006.