From July ’08 Spotlight: Peter Ascoli’s recent biography of his grandfather, Julius Rosenwald: The Man who Built Sears, Roebuck and Advanced the Cause of Black Education in the American South, was named one of the best books of 2006 by the Chicago Tribune. But also contained within the 453 pages of this monumental book is the story of Ascoli’s grandmother Augusta Nusbaum Rosenwald. Ascoli will talk about “Gussie” for the first time at a meeting sponsored by Hadassah’s new Shachar Group on Wednesday July 16 at 7:00 PM at Chicago’s Harold Washington Library Center.
“It is indeed true that I have never spoken before, in Chicago or anywhere else, about my grandmother,” Ascoli told me in an e-mail message. “But unlike the wives of other philanthropists, who are largely unknown and unrecognized, Gussie was a real personality in her own right. She was a good friend of such luminaries as Jane Addams and Henrietta Szold, and she had her own views. For example, it is likely that she was more pro-Zionist than her husband.”
For more information, call the Chicago Hadassah office at (847) 675-6790, or visit their website: www.chicago.hadassah.org.
