Phillip A. Payton, Jr. (1867-1917) and his Afro-American Realty Company took advantage of the real estate “color line” in New York and helped to establish Harlem as a major cultural landmark in African-American history. Born the son of a tea merchant and barber in Westfield, Massachusetts, Payton moved to New York soon after graduating from …
Category: Business
Black Business in the Gilded Age: C.R. Patterson Automobile Company
By the turn of the century, America was home to over 1,000 automobile manufacturers, including Ford, Cadillac, and General Motors. What automobile history does not record is the presence of an automobile manufacturer owned and run by an African-American family in Ohio. Charles Richard Patterson was born enslaved in 1833, and escaped nearly thirty years …
Black Business in the Gilded Age: Coleman Manufacturing Company
The Gilded Age not only witnessed an unprecedented boom in technological advances and the businesses created by a rapidly globalizing economy, but the amazing growth of equally advanced professions within the African-American community. Whether it be the manufacture of hair products and beauty schools, the opening of colleges and universities, or the founding of a …