Part 1 - The Institute Libraries - Institute for Advanced Study

T PRE31STORY Of THE ZIqSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY
In the autm of 1929 two elderly residents of South Orange,
New
-
Jersey, were quietly sezrehing for a philanthropy worthy ts k
endowed wfth their zr;r?le fortunes. Mr. Louis Bemberger, then in his
seventy-fourth year, had been left virtually alone at the head of a
great retail drygoads business bearing his nam by the death of his
vslued partner and friend, Felix Fuld, husband of his sister, in
January 1929, Mr. Bderger and Mrs. Fuld realized -*t he could no
longer carry he burde~ of the business, though there were younger men
of the family in it. And so they sold it to R. R. Macy and Coarpany of
New York. - In September, 1929, when the sale was constmmated, Mr.
Batlberger and his sister turned to a search for the most beneficial use
to which their fortunes coulu be put. They regarded their wealth not
only as a just reward for the mny years of faithful attention to the
exacting business of serving the people of Newark, which they had done
with signal success, but also as a trust to be devoted to the welfare
of their fellow citizens.
It has been said thet during Mr. Fuldts lffe the three, who
were an intimse and close circle, had often talked about the uses of
their fortunes, and that Mr. Fuld inclined toward the founding and en-
dowing of a dental school in Newark. But his wife and brother-in-law
did not favor that idea. The question was still utr~old at hia death.
hey would like to establish and endm a
medical school either in Newaxk or on the Fuld hotm estqte