Chicago Bee

The Chicago Bee or Chicago Sunday Bee was a Chicago-based weekly newspaper founded by Anthony Overton, an African American, for primarily African-American readers. The paper was committed to covering "wholesome and authentic news",^[4] and adopted a middle-class, conservative tone.^[5] Politically, it was aligned with the Republican Party.^[6]

After sharing quarters with the Hygienic Company in the 1920s, the Bee moved into the new Chicago Bee Building , an Art Deco structure built between 1929 and 1931.^[7] However, after Overton's bank failed in the 1930s, the two businesses shared quarters once again, as the Hygienic Company moved into the Bee building.^[8]

Chandler Owen became editor of the Bee after moving to Chicago.^[9] The Bee initially supported the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, which Owen supported, but later joined other publications including the Chicago Defender in opposing the union.^[10]

Subsequent editors of the paper included Ida B. Wells and Olive Diggs.^[11] The Bee's editorial staff was mostly female,^[12] and the newspaper covered the black women's club movement extensively.^[4] It distinguished itself from other newspapers in the Chicago black press in its promotion of black history and literature.^[13][12]

The Bee sponsored the original "Mayor of Bronzeville" contest which led to the use of the term "Bronzeville" for the neighborhood.^[4] The concept was originally suggested by theater editor James Gentry, who coined the term and had been sponsoring a beauty contest in the neighborhood since 1916.^[14] When Gentry left the paper in 1932, he took his concept with him to the Chicago Defender, which continued the contests.^[14]

The paper's founder and owner Anthony Overton was a wealthy industrialist, owning a number of concerns including the Overton Hygienic Company, a successful cosmetics firm.^[15] He had also made a previous venture in publishing, in the form of the Half Century Magazine.^[15] After Overton's death in 1946, the Bee was briefly continued by his sons in a tabloid format, but was unsuccessful.^[1] It folded in 1947.^[3]

Very little of the Bee survives today, apart from the building it occupied. One historian was unable to find a single intact issue from the years 1925 to 1935.^[16]

Works cited

• Bates, Beth Tompkins (2001). Pullman Porters and the Rise of Protest Politics in Black America, 1925-1945. ISBN 0807875368.
• Capozolla, Christopher (2004). "Owen, Chandler". Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance: K-Y. ISBN 1579584586.
• Grant, Carl A.; Grant, Shelby J. (2013). The Moment: Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, and the Firestorm at Trinity United Church of Christ. ISBN 1442219971.
• Ingham, John N.; Feldman, Lynne B. (1994). "Overton, Anthony". African-American Business Leaders: A Biographical Dictionary. ISBN 0313272530.
• Knupfer, Anne Meis (2006). The Chicago Black Renaissance and Women's Activism. ISBN 0252072936.
• Mahoney, Olivia (2001). Douglas/Grand Boulevard: A Chicago Neighborhood. ISBN 0738518557.
• Reed, Christopher Robert (2011). The Rise of Chicago's Black Metropolis, 1920-1929. ISBN 0252093178.
• Savage, Beth L. (1994). African American Historic Places. ISBN 0471143456.
• Schlabach, Elizabeth (2013). Along the Streets of Bronzeville: Black Chicago's Literary Landscape.
• Trodd, Zoe (2011). "The Black Press and the Black Chicago Renaissance". In Tracy, Steven C. Writers of the Black Chicago Renaissance. ISBN 0252093429.
• West, Sandra L. (2003). "Chicago". Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. ISBN 1438130171.

References