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The Merchant Prince of Black Chicago

The Merchant Prince of Black Chicago

Anthony Overton and the Building of a Financial Empire

by Robert E. Weems Jr.

Published by: University of Illinois Press

Imprint: University of Illinois Press

18 black & white photographs, 5 tables

Digital download
9780252051920
Published: March 2020

Description
Contents
Authors
Praise

Born to enslaved parents, Anthony Overton became one of the leading African American entrepreneurs of the twentieth century. Overton's Chicago-based empire ranged from personal care products and media properties to insurance and finance. Yet, despite success and acclaim as the first business figure to win the NAACP's Spingarn Medal, Overton remains an enigma.

Robert E. Weems Jr. restores Overton to his rightful place in American business history. Dispelling stubborn myths, he traces Overton's rise from mentorship by Booker T. Washington, through early failures, to a fateful move to Chicago in 1911. There, Overton started a popular magazine aimed at African American women that helped him dramatically grow his cosmetics firm. Overton went on to become the first African American to head a major business conglomerate, only to lose significant parts of his businesses—and his public persona as ”the merchant prince of his race”—in the Depression, before rebounding once again in the early 1940s.

Revealing and panoramic, The Merchant Prince of Black Chicago weaves the fascinating life story of an African American trailblazer through the eventful history of his times.

Cover

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Anthony Overton’s Early Life: Myth versus Reality

2. A Star Is Born: Initial Years in Chicago

3. The Half-Century Magazine: 1916–1925

4. Business Titan: The Douglass National Bank and the Victory Life Insurance Company

5. What Goes Up Must Come Down: The Impact of the Great Depression

Epilogue: Final Years and Legacy

Appendix A: North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company

Appendix B: Atlanta Life Insurance Company

Appendix C: Liberty Life Insurance Company

Appendix D: Victory Life Insurance Company

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

Robert E. Weems Jr. is the Willard W. Garvey Distinguished Professor of Business History at Wichita State University. His books include Business in Black and White: American Presidents and Black Entrepreneurs in the Twentieth Century and Building the Black Metropolis: African American Entrepreneurship in Chicago.

"Weems is an extremely diligent researcher and provides an excellent introduction to Overton. The book is as much a history of Black business in Chicago during Overton's life as a conventional biography and a picture of an era." --Journal of American History

"In The Merchant Prince of Black Chicago: Anthony Overton and the Building of a Financial Empire, historian Robert E. Weems Jr. offers a comprehensive biography of an important Black businessman who has largely faded in public memory. . . . Weems is appropriately critical of Overton throughout. . . . An excellent book that is both rich in historical detail and eminently readable." --Journal of African American History

"The Merchant Prince of Black Chicago clears the air around one of Black America's most successful businessmen and his time . . . a fascinating read." --Business History Review