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(BUSINESS.)
Harlem Better Business League.
Round poster, 9-3/4 inches
in diameter, enclosing a smaller circular vignette (5 inches in diameter) of a black family
with the caption “A Clerk in Negro Business at Home.The Result of Group Economy.”
NewYork, nd
[500/750]
A highly unusual poster, possibly meant to be hung at one’s place of business.The design of the poster
is intriguing— incorporating two circles, the smaller of which is within a square, bearing the motto
“Trade on the Square.”The only reference we could find to the Harlem Better Business League was
in a 1941, all black cast film, “Murder on Lenox Avenue.The plot of this sensational film “follows
the disgraced leader of the Harlem Better Business League as he plots to murder his replacement.” (an
early advertisement for the film).The Harlem Better Business League, it would seem was a perfectly
legitimate outgrowth of the Negro Business League, founded by BookerTWashington in 1900.
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(BUSINESS—DIRECTORIES.) COLEMAN, ROBERT W.
The First
Colored Professional, Clerical, Skilled and Business Directory of Baltimore City.
Illustrated from photographs. 104 pages, 8vo, original printed stiff wrappers, lightly worn
with punch-hole at the top left for hanging by one’s telephone; rear cover re-atttached
with archival paper.
Baltimore: Coleman, 1916
[500/750]
THE SIXTEENTH ANNUAL EDITION
,
of an exceptional directory, compiled by RobertW. Coleman,
and bearing a long introduction by Eric C.Williams, the first AfricanAmerican to be professionally
trained as a librarian.[at this time librarian at Howard University].The compiler Robert W.
Coleman, was the son of A.B. Colemen, who together with Frederick Douglass organized the
44th, 45th, and 55th Regiments during the CivilWar.As a young adult, Coleman was stricken
almost totally blind. But not to be deterred, he learned to be a piano tuner in order to earn a living.
In his “odd hours” asWilliams put it, Coleman began assembling the information for the first of
these directories (1912), and the rest as they say is history.With wonderful advertisements for
colored businesses. Pages 78 through 100 contain photographic portraits and biographies of
Baltimore’s prominent black citizens, ministers, lawyers etc. Excellent prime resource.
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(BUSINESS—DIRECTORIES.) COLEMAN, ROBERTW.
The first Colored
Directory of Baltimore City, with Washington Annex.
Copious illustrations. 55
pages, plus index. 8vo, original stiff blue printed covers, punch-hole at top for hanging by
one’s telephone.
Baltimore, 1928
[500/750]
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