A Force for Change: African American Art and the Julius Rosenwald Fund, is the first exhibition to explore the legacy of the Julius Rosenwald Fund, created in 1917 by Chicago businessman and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald (1862-1932), who made his fortune as CEO of Sears, Roebuck and Company. From 1928 to 1948, the Rosenwald Fund's Fellowship Program awarded stipends to hundreds of African American artists, writers, teachers, and scholars-many with ties to Chicago-as well as white southerners with an interest in race relations.

This accompanying 175-page exhibition catalogue is co-published by Spertus Museum and Northwestern University Press. A collection of essays by leading scholars in their fields, with illustrations and annotated color plates of the works in the exhibition, the book explores the process by which hundreds of promising and important African American artists, writers, academics, and researchers received financial support for their work through the Julius Rosenwald Fund. Essayists include Peter M. Ascoli, grandson and biographer of Julius Rosenwald and a faculty member at Spertus College; Kinshasha Holman Conwill, deputy director of the National Museum of African American Art and Culture, Smithsonian Institution; Julia Foulkes, historian of dance, The New School, New York; Alfred Perkins, biographer of Rosenwald Fund president Edwin Embree; Darryl Pinckney, novelist and literary critic; and Daniel Schulman, guest curator and scholar of African American art.

A Force for Change: African American Art and the Julius Rosenwald Fund is an award-winning publication, recognized by the Association of American University Presses.

Paperback.

Northwestern University Press.