The Chicago World

Last updated
The Chicago World
TypeWeekly newspaper
Format Broadsheet
Founder(s)Jacob R. Tipper
PublisherJacob R. Tipper
Founded1918 (1918)
Ceased publication1953
Circulation 40,000
ISSN 2694-1066

The Chicago World was a weekly African-American newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, on Saturdays from 1918 to 1953. [1] [2]

History

The paper was established by Jacob R. Tipper of Bainbridge, Georgia. Mrs. Stella M. Tipper, his wife, also played an important role in the management of the paper. The May 7, 1949 issue described her as having “mothered the paper through many trying experiences.” The Tippers moved to Chicago from Georgia around 1908, opening a grocery store and market soon after their arrival.

Though he regularly ran for office every election, he just as regularly lost, and Jacob Tipper never occupied paid public office. [3] He was nonetheless prominent among Bronzeville politicians, an active member of the Republican party, and somewhat notorious for his "self-interest and unscrupulous dealing". [4] He was elected as a delegate to the Republican National Convention and was a protégé of Edward Herbert Wright in Chicago’s Second Ward. [1] [5] [6]

In 1918, Tipper began the newspaper as the Chicago Enterprise, which was later renamed the Chicago World in 1928. The World described its platform thusly:

Fight against the words Negro, Nigger, and Negress. Use your buying power as you use your ballot. Spend your money in your own community. Married women should not be made to work. Teach your dollar sense. Cut down on southern representation in Congress. Don't spend your money where you can't work. [7]

The World gradually grew in circulation, reaching 40,000 people each week at its height. The World‘s staff of ten ran a printing plant with $35,000 worth of equipment one block away from The Chicago Defender , at 3611 South Indiana. [1] Journalist and labor movement activist Frank Marshall Davis once claimed that the paper did not always publish new writing in every issue: if Tipper had not paid the staff, there would be no new content inside the newspaper, just a fresh front page that Tipper put together himself. [3]

Political coverage in the World supported the Republican party, with the endorsement of Republican political candidates, including support for 1948 presidential candidate Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York. Front-page news contained local, national, and international coverage, with reports on crime, relief efforts, politics, death, illness, business, and sports. The paper also included cartoons, book reviews, church news, a theater page, and a society page. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lincoln–Douglas debates</span> Series of debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in Illinois, US (1858)

The Lincoln–Douglas debates were a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate. Until the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provides that senators shall be elected by the people of their states, was ratified in 1913, senators were elected by their respective state legislatures, so Lincoln and Douglas were trying to win the votes of the Illinois General Assembly for their respective parties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur Wergs Mitchell</span> American politician (1883–1968)

Arthur Wergs Mitchell, Sr., was a U.S. Representative from Illinois. For his entire congressional career from 1935 to 1943, he was the only African American in Congress. Mitchell was the first African American to be elected to the United States Congress as a Democrat—he defeated and succeeded Oscar De Priest, a black Republican.

<i>Milwaukee Journal Sentinel</i> Daily newspaper based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is a daily morning broadsheet printed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where it is the primary newspaper. It is also the largest newspaper in the state of Wisconsin, where it is widely distributed. It is currently owned by the Gannett Company.

<i>Jet</i> (magazine) African-American weekly magazine formerly based in Chicago

Jet is an American weekly digital magazine focusing on news, culture, and entertainment related to the African-American community. Founded in November 1951 by John H. Johnson of the Johnson Publishing Company in Chicago, Illinois, the magazine was billed as "The Weekly Negro News Magazine". Jet chronicled the civil rights movement from its earliest years, including the murder of Emmett Till, the Montgomery bus boycott, and the activities of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of African Americans in Chicago</span> Aspect of history

The history of African Americans in Chicago or Black Chicagoans dates back to Jean Baptiste Point du Sable’s trading activities in the 1780s. Du Sable, the city's founder, was Haitian of African and French descent. Fugitive slaves and freedmen established the city's first black community in the 1840s. By the late 19th century, the first black person had been elected to office.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African-American newspapers</span> Newspapers serving African American communities

African-American newspapers are news publications in the United States serving African-American communities. Samuel Cornish and John Brown Russwurm started the first African-American periodical called Freedom's Journal in 1827. During the antebellum South, other African-American newspapers sprang forth, such as The North Star founded in 1847 by Frederick Douglass.

The Pittsburgh Courier was an African-American weekly newspaper published in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1907 until October 22, 1966. By the 1930s, the Courier was one of the leading black newspapers in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Marshall Davis</span> United States writer, political and labor movement activist

Frank Marshall Davis was an American journalist, poet, political and labor movement activist, and businessman.

<i>Illinois Staats-Zeitung</i> German-American newspaper

Illinois Staats-Zeitung was one of the most well-known German-language newspapers of the United States; it was published in Chicago from 1848 until 1922. Along with the Westliche Post and Anzeiger des Westens, both of St. Louis, it was one of the three most successful German-language newspapers in the United States Midwest, and described as "the leading Republican paper of the Northwest", alongside the Chicago Tribune. By 1876, the paper was printing 14,000 copies an hour and was second only to the Tribune in citywide circulation.

<i>Indianapolis Freeman</i> African-American newspaper

The Indianapolis Freeman(1884-1926) was the first illustrated black newspaper in the United States. Founder and owner Louis Howland, who was soon replaced by Edward Elder Cooper, published its first print edition on November 20, 1884.

Christopher Robert Reed is an American historian known for his expertise on the African American experience in twentieth century Chicago, Illinois. Reed was assistant professor of Black Studies at the University of Illinois from 1982 to 1987, and professor of history at Roosevelt University from 1987 to 2006 as an associate and then full professor. He has published a number of books in his fields.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1880 Greenback National Convention</span> US political convention

The 1880 Greenback Party National Convention convened in Chicago from June 9 to 11, 1880, to select presidential and vice presidential nominees and write a party platform for the Greenback Party in the United States presidential election of 1880. Delegates chose James B. Weaver of Iowa for President and Barzillai J. Chambers of Texas for Vice President.

The Chicago Defender is a Chicago-based online African-American newspaper. It was founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott and was once considered the "most important" newspaper of its kind. Abbott's newspaper reported and campaigned against Jim Crow-era violence and urged black people in the American South to settle in the north in what became the Great Migration. Abbott worked out an informal distribution system with Pullman porters who surreptitiously took his paper by rail far beyond Chicago, especially to African American readers in the southern United States. Under his nephew and chosen successor, John H. Sengstacke, the paper dealt with racial segregation in the United States, especially in the U.S. military, during World War II. Copies of the paper were passed along in communities, and it is estimated that at its most successful, each copy was read by four to five people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solomon T. Clanton</span>

Solomon T. Clanton was a leader in the Baptist Church. He was educated in New Orleans and Chicago and became the first black graduate of the theological department at the Baptist Union Theological Seminary at Morgan Park, Chicago, Illinois, associated with the University of Chicago. He spent his career as an educator and leader in the Baptist Church. He served as a professor at Leland University, Alabama A&M University, and Selma University, and before his death as assistant librarian at the University of Chicago. He was acting president for a short time at Alabama A&M and was dean of the theological department at Selma University. During his career, he was also an educator in high schools and Sunday schools.

P.W. Chavers (1876–1933) born Pearl William Chavers, was a banker, entrepreneur, industrialist, philanthropist, African-American journalist, and real estate developer in Chicago, Illinois. He devoted his life to the establishment of a black economy in Chicago, Illinois and in Columbus, Ohio.

<i>Freedom</i> (American newspaper) 1950–1955 monthly newspaper on African-American issues

Freedom was a monthly newspaper focused on African-American issues published between 1950–1955. The publication was associated primarily with the internationally renowned singer, actor and then officially disfavored activist Paul Robeson, whose column, with his photograph, ran on most of its front pages. Freedom's motto was: "Where one is enslaved, all are in chains!" The newspaper has been described as "the most visible African American Left cultural institution during the early 1950s." In another characterization, "Freedom paper was basically an attempt by a small group of black activists, most of them Communists, to provide Robeson with a base in Harlem and a means of reaching his public... The paper offered more coverage of the labor movement than nearly any other publication, particularly of the left-led unions that were expelled from the CIO in the late 1940s... [It] encouraged its African American readership to identify its struggles with anti-colonial movements in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. Freedom gave extensive publicity to... the struggle against apartheid."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Negro Exposition</span> World’s Fair-style event celebrating 75th anniversary of Emancipation Proclamation

The American Negro Exposition, also known as the Black World's Fair and the Diamond Jubilee Exposition, was a world's fair held in Chicago from July until September in 1940, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the end of slavery in the United States at the conclusion of the Civil War in 1865.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur G. Froe</span> American lawyer and politician

Arthur Glenn Froe was an American lawyer and politician. He was appointed by President Warren G. Harding as the Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia, and served in this position from 1922 to 1930 during the presidential administrations of Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "About Chicago World (Chicago, Ill.) 1918-????". Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress . Retrieved 2022-07-25.
  2. Nero, Marie Eloise (1947). The Negro Press in the United States. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 26. Retrieved 2022-07-25.
  3. 1 2 Davis, Frank Marshall (2003). Tidwell, John Edgar (ed.). Livin' the Blues: Memoirs of a Black Journalist and Poet. University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 107–108. ISBN   9780299135041 . Retrieved 2022-07-26.
  4. Nordin, Dennis Sven (1997). "Halcyon Days for Chicago's Perfect Black Politician, 1934-1935". The New Deal's Black Congressman: A Life of Arthur Wergs Mitchell. University of Missouri Press. p. 85. ISBN   9780826211026 . Retrieved 2022-07-26.
  5. Weems, Robert; Chambers, Jason Chambers, eds. (2017). Building the Black Metropolis: African American Entrepreneurship in Chicago. University of Illinois Press. p. 55. ISBN   9780252050022 . Retrieved 2022-07-25.
  6. Reed, Christopher Robert (2011). "The Golden Decade of Black Business". The Rise of Chicago's Black Metropolis, 1920-1929. The New Black Studies Series. University of Illinois Press. p. 104. ISBN   9780252093173 . Retrieved 2022-07-26.
  7. Writers' Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Illinois (2013-05-22). "Defender". In Dolinar, Brian (ed.). The Negro in Illinois: The WPA Papers. University of Illinois Press. p. 187. ISBN   9780252094958. LCCN   2012044794 . Retrieved 2022-07-25.

PD-icon.svg This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Library of Congress .