Copyright by Yuri Andrew Campbell 2014
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Copyright by Yuri Andrew Campbell 2014 The Dissertation Committee for Yuri Andrew Campbell Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: The Brothers Johnson: The Lincoln Motion Picture Company, Black Business, and the Negro Image During the Progressive Era Committee: _________________________________ Juliet E. K. Walker, Supervisor _________________________________ Toyin Falola _________________________________ Leonard Moore _________________________________ Karl Miller _________________________________ Johnny S. Butler The Brothers Johnson: The Lincoln Motion Picture Company, Black Business, and the Negro Image During the Progressive Era by Yuri Andrew Campbell, B.A., J.D. 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 2014 Abstract The Brothers Johnson: The Lincoln Motion Picture Company, Black Business, and the Negro Image During the Progressive Era Yuri Andrew Campbell, PhD. The University oF Texas at Austin, 2014 Supervisor: Juliet E. K. Walker This dissertation looks at the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, the first Filmmaking concern owned and operated by African Americans with the intention oF producing dramas depicting the race in a positive Fashion. By undertaking a micro-level inquiry oF the LMPC the study provides an unusually detailed assessment oF the strengths and weaknesses of a Progressive-Era black entrepreneurial endeavor whose national reach had macro-level economic and cultural eFFect within the African-American commercial realm. On the micro-level, the dissertation adheres to the Cole model oF entrepreneurial history by addressing the Family, social, and employment backgrounds oF the two brothers who owned and operated the Film venture, Noble and George Johnson. The dissertation thereFore includes notable attentions paid to the business experiences oF a third brother, Virgel, and their Father, Perry. The Family’s deeply rooted ethos of selF-reliance through business intertwines with their search for spaces afFording the opportunity to deal with wealthy whites and vibrant black communities. The importance oF black geographic and economic mobility during For burgeoning establishment oF a sense and practice oF a black economic and cultural nation is thereby highlighted. The business history inquiry into the iii organizational and operational specifics of the LMPC provides an inFormative bedding For the second prong oF the study’s thrust, explicating the ways that the businesses oF Noble and George Johnson can be seen as modes oF a nationally-projected production of the social and cultural knowledge of race. That line of questioning is enhanced by the Family’s history with racial ambiguity and the search For access to white wherewithal. On this Front those businesses are vetted as chapters in the African-American tradition oF modern public storytelling aimed at Forwarding the advancement oF the race’s bids For Full citiZenship and material well being by strategically demanding the recognition oF black humanity. Theses storytelling businesses were important links in a tradition which had proFound eFFects on African-American liFe and constituted discursive practices which help us to see the multi-faceted, even contradictory, pull within the experience of blackness in America, a basis oF identity seeking likeness and diFFerence, domains oF blackness and the Freedom to move beyond black. iv Table of Contents Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................................................... v Introduction ......................................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 .................................................................................................................................................................. 13 Into the West: Mobility, Racial Ambiguity, and the Business End oF the Early New Negro Search For America. .............................................................................................................................................. 13 Exodus to Belonging: The Great Migration and the Search For the Promised Land ........... 16 The American Dream Rises in the West: The Johnsons in Colorado Spring .......................... 20 The Pursuit oF Mastery: A Family oF Horsemen and the Business oF Extraction ................. 23 The Johnson Boys: Noble and George ..................................................................................................... 29 George in Oklahoma and Nebraska: Patronage and Realms oF Ambiguity ............................ 38 Passing Out of the Picture: Virgel Johnson ........................................................................................... 58 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................................................ 80 Chapter 2 .................................................................................................................................................................. 83 Black Prometheus: Bringing the Filmic Light oF UpliFt Back From the Frontier and the Business oF Creating a Black Sub-Nation. ................................................................................................... 83 Noble Johnson, the Black Image in Early Film, and the Birth oF Black Cinema ..................... 87 A Business Response to Unjust Imagery: The Lincoln Motion Picture Company: The LMPC is Born ..................................................................................................................................................... 96 The Black Theater-Going Experience ..................................................................................................... 99 The Problem and Solve oF Distribution ............................................................................................... 103 Advertising: Addressing and Creating Consumer Needs ............................................................ 116 The Stardom oF Noble Johnson ............................................................................................................... 122 The LMPC as Uplift Businesses ............................................................................................................... 127 The Race Film Business Family .............................................................................................................. 130 Mining For Black Diamonds: Financing the LMPC .......................................................................... 134 Conclusions ..................................................................................................................................................... 140 Chapter 3 ............................................................................................................................................................... 143 Star Dims to Blackness: The Limits oF Race Based Business Models and the Fall oF the Lincoln Motion Picture Company. .............................................................................................................. 143 The Problem oF Human Capital, Pt. 1: Noble Johnson’s Resignation ...................................... 145 The Problem oF Human Capital, Pt. 2: The Bid for Oscar Micheaux ........................................ 149 Financing With Government Funding: The Attempt to ProFit Through CitiZenship ....... 165 Financing Through Reorganization ...................................................................................................... 174 The Lincoln Company Goes to War ....................................................................................................... 185 The Last Deal: By Right of Birth and the Wind Down of the LMPC ......................................... 190 Access to Markets and the Concept oF Detour: Some Comparative Thoughts on the LMPC’s Demise ............................................................................................................................................... 205 v Conclusions ..................................................................................................................................................... 221 Chapter 4 ............................................................................................................................................................... 224 RealiZation oF a Human Scenario: Tales oF a New Negro World, Mastery, and the Films oF the Lincoln Motion Picture Company. ...................................................................................................... 224 IdentiFication and Film Theory ............................................................................................................... 225 The Films oF the LMPC ................................................................................................................................ 236 RealiZation oF a Negro’s Ambition: Material Well-Being and the Desire to Be RecogniZed .............................................................................................................................................................................. 237 The Trooper of Troop K: Citizen Soldier and the Path to Manhood