Biography
Roberta Brandes Gratz is an award-winning journalist and author of six books, the last of which was We're Still Here Ya Bastards: How the People of New Orleans Rebuilt Their City. Others include: The Battle For Gotham: New York in the Shadow of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs; The Living City: Thinking Small in a Big Way; Cities Back From the Edge: New Life for Downtown,· and Fifty Years of New York History As Seen Through The Work of Joan Davidson and the JMKaplan Fund. She led the restoration of the Eldridge Street Synagogue on New York's Lower East Side and served on the NYC Landmarks Commission under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. She divides her time between New York and New Orleans.
Research
EDITH is the story of one woman, her family, the Sterns - husband Edgar, son Edgar Jr., father Julius Rosenwald -- her adopted city of New Orleans during the perilous decades of civil rights and school desegregation of which the Sterns were critical supporters. Edith, inheritor of Julius Rosenwald's Sears & Roebuck fortune, is reputed to have been the richest woman in New Orleans and, for sure, the most philanthropic.
Before their marriage in 1921, Edgar may have been a 'progressive' by New Orleans standards but as the 'husband of,' his progressivism accelerates. Together, they have a remarkable impact on New Orleans' education from lower school to college, voter registration, political reform, school integration and a staggering array of philanthropic areas from the city symphony and art museum to the founding of the Country Day School and Dillard University. In addition, working with civil rights activists and organizations and supporting breakthrough efforts through the Stem Fund, their impact on the city over five decades was transformative. They are the only couple to have both received the prestigious Loving Cup Award, given annually by the Times-Picayune newspaper for noteworthy civic contributions.
