Daughters of Ruth: Enterprising Black Women in Insurance in the New South, 1890S to 1930S
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Copyright by Shennette Monique Garrett-Scott 2011 The Dissertation Committee for Shennette Monique Garrett-Scott Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Daughters of Ruth: Enterprising Black Women in Insurance in the New South, 1890s to 1930s Committee: Juliet E. K. Walker, Supervisor Toyin Falola Tiffany M. Gill James Sidbury Mary Yeager Daughters of Ruth: Enterprising Black Women in Insurance in the New South, 1890s to 1930s by Shennette Monique Garrett-Scott, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2011 Dedication To my Aunt Daisy “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.” – Proverbs 31:29 NIV I miss you Acknowledgements It is hard to comprehend the immense amount of debts one acquires when undertaking a dissertation project. I would first like to thank the following organizations for funding that allowed me to travel to archives around the country and state of Texas: Center for Black Business History, Dirksen Congressional Center, Institute of Historical Studies at University of Texas, John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University, University of Texas Department of History, University of Texas Office of Graduate Studies, University of Texas School of Liberal Arts, and Virginia Historical Society. I would also like to thank the wonderful staffs of the archives I visited, especially Klydie Thomas, Curator of the Maggie Lena Walker House in Richmond, who copied every piece of paper I asked for and was excited about it; Phyllis Earles, University Archivist at Prairie View A&M University; Rebecca Hankins, Archivist at Texas A&M; and all of the archivists at the John Hope Franklin Center for letting me see “the stacks.” I would like to thank my dissertation committee. Dr. Juliet E. K. Walker was especially hands on from before the beginning, when the project was just an inchoate concept in the mind of a young, green graduate student who had no idea what she was getting herself into. I am constantly in awe of the depth of your intellect and of your kindness. To Dr. Tiffany Gill, who sent emails gently prodding me along and offering encouragement; you are the epitome of grace in scholarship and life. Thank you to Dr. James Sidbury, who I recruited late but you dove in wholeheartedly. Thank you to Dr. Toyin Falola, who always asks questions that make you think and is probably one of the coolest professors I have ever met. Last, but not least, many thanks to Dr. Mary Yeager, v who heard me speak at a Business History Conference in Toronto and agreed to help with the dissertation based on her excitement for my topic. Thank you all so much. I would like to thank Jim and Mary Brevard and the staff at Reel Thing Catfish in Allen, Texas, for the hundreds of hours I spent in their restaurant while writing and editing the dissertation. It was one of the few places I could really relax and think. I would also like to thank my church family at Fellowship Christian Center Church in Allen, and my pastor and first lady, Reverends Dr. Wayne and Tasha Stafford, for their prayers and encouragement. The entire church had called me “Dr. Scott” for months before the defense, and I was glad when the title became official. Special thanks to Christina and Melvin Kador, Frank and Brenda Gray, and Gilbert McLorren. Many thanks to my family. To my aunt and uncle, Theodore and Gennie Gilmore, for always being there. To my sister and brother-in-law, Keisha and Christopher Hall, and to my nieces and nephew, Cynthia, Jeisha, and Dion: thank you for your love, support, and hospitality. Christopher is the best amateur chef in Texas! To my brother Curtis Sanders: I still remember your visit and when we walked around downtown Austin. And to my mother, Johnnie Brossman, who instilled a love of learning in me when I was a very little girl. You have always encouraged me to pursue my dreams. Thanks to my father-in-law Curtis Scott and his wife, Lynn; to my mother-in-law, Alberta Jordan; and my sister-in-law Kelly Scott: I love you. Last, but, not least, thank you to my own little family. To my children Malcolm, Dominique, and Malik: everything I do, I do for you. And to my soul mate and best friend, Vincent: This is ours. vi Abstract Daughters of Ruth: Enterprising Black Women in Insurance in the New South, 1890s to 1930s Publication No._____________ Shennette Monique Garrett-Scott, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2011 Supervisor: Juliet E. K. Walker The dissertation explores the imbricated nature of race, gender, and class in the field of insurance within the political economy of the New South. It considers how enterprising black women navigated tensions between New South rhetoric and Jim Crow reality as well as sexism and racism within the industry and among their industry peers. It complicates the narrative of black southern labor history that focuses more on women as agricultural laborers, domestics, and factory workers than as enterprising risk takers who sought to counterbalance personal ambition and self-interest with communal empowerment. Insurance organizations within black-run secret fraternal societies and formal black-owned insurance companies emerged as not only powerful symbols of black business achievement by the early decades of the twentieth century but also the most vii lucrative business sector of the separate black economy. Negro Captains of Industry, a coterie of successful, influential, self-made men, stood at the forefront; they represented the keystone of black economic, social, and political progress. The term invoked a decidedly masculinist image of “legitimate” leadership of black business. Considering fraternal and formal insurance, gender-inscribed rhetoric, shaped by racism and New South ideology, imagined black men as the ideal protectors and providers; women became the objects of protection rather than agents of economic development, job creation, and financial security. The dissertation explores how women operated creatively within and outside of normative expectations of their role in the insurance business. The dissertation considers the role of state regulation and zealous regulators who often targeted insurance organizations and companies, the primary symbols of black business success; in other ways, regulation dramatically improved profitability and stability. The dissertation identifies three key periods: the Pre-Regulatory Era, 1890s to 1906; the Era of Regulation, 1907-World War I; and the Professionalization of Black Insurance, Post-WWI to the Great Depression. It also considers the barriers to black women’s involvement in professional organizations. By the late 1930s, enterprising women in insurance lost ground as fraternal insurance waned in influence and as the strongest proponents of the black separate economy promoted a vision that embraced women as consumers rather than business owners. viii Table of Contents List of Tables............................................................................................................................................xii List of Illustrations............................................................................................................................... xiii List of Abbrevations............................................................................................................................. xiii Introduction: “Your Destiny is Our Destiny”: Race, Gender, and Entrepreneurship in the New South..............................................................................................................................1 The Separate Black Economy in the New South.................................................................... 6 Negro Captains of Industry and the New South ..................................................................16 Historiography and Methodology............................................................................................ 35 Dissertation Overview.................................................................................................................42 Chapter One: “We Need Not Die to Win”: Race and Gender in the Business of Insurance..........................................................................................................................................46 Origins of Negro Fraternal Insurance in the U.S. ................................................................49 The “Golden Age” of Negro Fraternal and Private Insurance ..........................................62 Growth of Negro Insurance Companies ................................................................................66 Women and Gender in Fraternal Insurance ..........................................................................71 Chapter Two: “It is among These”: The Grand Court of Calanthe of Texas in the Pre-Regulatory Era, 1890s-1906.................................................................................................84 Gender, Race, and Fraternal Insurance ..................................................................................88 The Court of Calanthe, 1883-1906 ............................................................................................95 Chapter Three: “Who Is So Helpless as the Negro Woman?”: The Independent Order of St. Luke in the Pre-Regulatory Era, 1890s-1906................................................. 120 ix Independent