Joseph Rosenbaum

Joseph Rosenbaum is one of the veteran and leading commission merchants of Chicago, dealing both in live stock and grain, and is also an old and honored soldier of the Civil war, having been elected department commander of the state by the encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic which met at Quincy, Illinois, in May, 1908.

Mr. Rosenbaum is a Bavarian, his birth at Munich, in the famous military kingdom of Germany, occurring on the 1st of April, 1838. The circumstances attending his coming to the United States, as a bright and ambitious boy of twelve, had a direct and a strong bearing upon a prominent phase of his after life.

His father's activity was so evident in the revolutionary movement of 1848 that the authorities, dominated by Prussia, fixed his penalty at death in case he did not leave the country within two days. Prussia had obtained constitutional government, and the revolution was largely an effort of the progressive element of young men to obtain the same rights for the other kingdoms and principalities, which afterward became United Germany under a constitutional monarch.

The revolution was temporarily crushed, but resulted in driving from the country many young Germans of unusual ability. A majority of them finally settled in the west, among whom were the late gifted statesman and man of letters, Carl Schurz, and Governor Salomon, of Wisconsin, a great figure in the civic and military annals of that state.

Mr. Rosenbaum's father had truly a noble company when he fled his Fatherland in 1848, and founded a new home in that western frontier town of Dubuque, Iowa. In 1850,. after he had fairly established a means of livelihood in that place, his daughter and his two sons, Morris and Joseph, joined him in the far west of the United States. The events of this troublous period in the family life made a deep impression on the latter, especially the military atmosphere which was more than normally prominent in Bavaria during the revolutionary period.

In 1858, when twenty years of age, Mr. Rosenbaum associated himself with the brother mentioned andestablished a general store at Cedar Falls, Iowa, but after four years of business life the events of the Civil war so stirred his military ardor that he enlisted (July, 1862) in Company B, Thirty-first Iowa Volunteer Infantry and served in the fighting ranks until hostilities on the battlefield completely ceased.

In 1865 he returned from the front and, with his brother, Morris, began to handle live stock and grain at Waverly, Iowa, their chief market being Chicago. Two years later they entered into partnership in the banking business, Joseph being cashier of the Bremer County Bank, and Morris held the same position in the Bank of Nashua, Iowa, both of which institutions they had founded. In 1874 they sold their Iowa interests in both of the banking concerns, and coming to Chicago established the live stock commission firm of Rosenbaum & Co., now the corporation of Rosenbaum & Co. Joseph Rosenbaum also founded the firm of Rosenbaum Brothers, grain commission merchants. He is also president of the Live Stock Investment Company and of the J. Rosenbaum Grain Company.

Mr. Rosenbaum has long been an active member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and his strong influence for the good of the fraternity, as well as his stanch personal character, met with signal recognition when he was elected to his present position as department commander of Illinois. In 1873 he was united in marriage with Miss Emma Frank, and the children born to them have been Mannie, Edwin Stanton, Blanche and Walter. The family resides in handsome apartments at the Auditorium Annex. Mr. Rosenbaum is a stanch member of the Sinai Congregation, is identified with the Standard Club and is a Royal Arch Mason.

-- From "Historical Rview of Chicago and Cook County and Selected Biography," by Arba Nelson Waterman.