Max Adler was born in Elgin, Illinois

Elgin, Illinois

Elgin is a city in northern Illinois located roughly northwest of Chicago on the Fox River. Most of Elgin lies within Kane County, Illinois, with a portion in Cook County, Illinois...

 to a German Jewish family who emigrated to America in about 1850. He was raised in Elgin and graduated from Elgin High School. As an adult he was a concert violinist in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 before he gave up music to become a vice president at Sears Roebuck & Co. after marrying into the family that controlled the company. His wife was Sophie Rosenwald, sister of Julius Rosenwald

Julius Rosenwald

Julius Rosenwald was a U.S. clothier, manufacturer, business executive, and philanthropist. He is best known as a part-owner and leader of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and for the Rosenwald Fund which donated millions to support the education of African American children in the rural South, as well...

, who founded Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry

Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago)

The Museum of Science and Industry is located in Chicago, Illinois, USA in Jackson Park, in the Hyde Park neighborhood adjacent to Lake Michigan. It is housed in the former Palace of Fine Arts from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition...

. He retired in 1928 to become a philanthropist and was key to the creation of the first planetarium

Planetarium

A planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation...

 in the Western Hemisphere

Western Hemisphere

The Western Hemisphere or western hemisphere is mainly used as a geographical term for the half of the Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian and east of the Antimeridian , the other half being called the Eastern Hemisphere.In this sense, the western hemisphere consists of the western portions...

, the Adler Planetarium

Adler Planetarium

The Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum in Chicago, Illinois was the first planetarium built in the Western Hemisphere and is the oldest in existence today. Adler was founded and built in 1930 by the philanthropist Max Adler, with the assistance of the first director of the planetarium, Philip Fox...

in Chicago, which bears his name.