The Merchant Prince of Black Chicago: Anthony Overton and the Building of a Financial Empire (2020)
Weems, Robert E., Jr. (Author)
University of Illinois Press
Physical Details: 224
Language: English
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. (Publisher)
...MoreReview Keith Hollingsworth (Winter 2020) Review of "The Merchant Prince of Black Chicago: Anthony Overton and the Building of a Financial Empire". Business History Review (pp. 853-855).
Similar Citations
Book
Robert E Weems;
Jason Chambers;
(2017)
Building the black metropolis: African American entrepreneurship in Chicago
Book
Leslie Berlin;
(2017)
Troublemakers: Silicon Valley’s Coming of Age
Book
Anschutz, Philip;
Convery, William Joseph;
Noel, Thomas J.;
(2015)
Out Where the West Begins: Profiles, Visions & Strategies of Early Western Business Leaders
Book
Werner Plumpe;
(2016)
Carl Duisberg, 1861–1935: Anatomie eines Industriellen [Carl Duisberg, 1861–1935: Anatomy of an Industrialist]
Book
Brian McCammack;
(2017)
Landscapes of Hope: Nature and the Great Migration in Chicago
Book
David Farber;
(2019)
Crack: Rock Cocaine, Street Capitalism, and the Decade of Greed
Book
Benjamin C. Waterhouse;
(2017)
The Land of Enterprise: A Business History of the United States
Book
Matthew Wisnioski;
Eric S. Hintz;
Marie Stettler Kleine;
(2019)
Does America Need More Innovators?
Book
Joshua Clark Davis;
(2017)
From Head Shops to Whole Foods: The Rise and Fall of Activist Entrepreneurs
Book
Brad Stone;
(2017)
The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World
Book
Michael R. Cohen;
(2017)
Cotton Capitalists: American Jewish Entrepreneurship in the Reconstruction Era
Book
George Robb;
(2017)
Ladies of the Ticker: Women and Wall Street from the Gilded Age to the Great Depression
Book
Geoffrey Jones;
(2017)
Profits and Sustainability: A History of Green Entrepreneurship
Book
John Carreyrou;
(2018)
Bad blood: secrets and lies in a Silicon Valley startup
Article
Per H. Hansen;
(Summer 2018)
Making Sense of Business and Community in Hollywood Films, 1928–2016
Book
Robert D. Lewis;
(2020)
Chicago's industrial decline: the failure of redevelopment, 1920-1975
Book
Traci Parker;
(2019)
Department Stores and the Black Freedom Movement: Workers, Consumers, and Civil Rights from the 1930s to the 1980s
Book
Mehrsa Baradaran;
(2017)
The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap
Article
Isabel Cole;
Walter A. Friedman;
(Summer 2023)
A Guide to the History of Industrial Slavery in the United States. (Research Note)
Book
Joe William Trotter, Jr.;
(2019)
Workers on Arrival: Black Labor in the Making of America
Be the first to comment!