Johnson Publishing Company, Inc.

International Directory of Company Histories, Volume 72 (2001) by Daryl Mallett, Christina Stansell

Johnson Publishing Company, Inc.

1820 South Michigan Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60605 U.S.A. Telephone: (312) 322-9200 Fax: (312) 322-0918 Web site: http://www.johnsonpublishing.com

Private Company Incorporated: 1942 as Negro Digest Publishing Co. Employees: 2,000 Sales: $488.5 million (2003) NAIC: 511120 Periodical Publishers; 511130 Book Publishers; 561510 Travel Agencies

Johnson Publishing Company, Inc., is the world's largest African American-owned publishing company. It is the home of Ebony and Jet magazines, as well as Fashion Fair Cosmetics, Ebony Fashion Fair, and the Johnson Publishing Company Book Division. Linda Johnson Rice, daughter of founder John H. Johnson, operates as president and CEO of the company.

Humble Beginnings in 1942

Johnson Publishing Company was founded in November 1942 by John H. Johnson—who was working part-time as an office boy for Supreme Life Insurance Company of America, located in Chicago, Illinois—and his wife, Eunice. Johnson's job was to clip magazine and newspaper articles about the African American community. As he clipped, the idea for an African American-oriented magazine came to mind. Using his mother's furniture as collateral, he secured a loan of $500. He then mailed out $2 charter subscription offers to potential subscribers. More than 3,000 replies came in, and the $6,000 was used to print the first issue of Negro Digest, a magazine based on the popular Reader's Digest.

Negro Digest Publishing Co. was born. Immediately facing obstacles such as finding a landlord willing to rent him office space in a not-yet-desegregated United States, Johnson managed to secure a room in the private law office of Earl B. Dickerson, on the second floor of his employer's building, the Supreme Life Insurance Company. In 1943 Johnson purchased a building at 5619 South State Street, to house the fledgling company. In 1949 the company converted a funeral parlor at 1820 South Michigan Avenue into office space and moved there, a location that would remain the company's headquarters into the new millennium, although it would grow to be 11 stories tall. Along the way, Negro Digest, which had a circulation at one time of 100,000 subscribers, was renamed Black World. In the 1970s, the readership dwindled, and the magazine was finally canceled in 1975.

By that time, however, the company was going strong with other products. In 1945 Johnson launched Ebony, a magazine patterned after Life, but focusing on the African American community, culture, and achievements. It was an immediate success and remained the company's flagship publication into the 21st century, with a readership at one point of more than 1.3 million. In 1951 Johnson created another magazine, called Jet, a celebrity-oriented magazine focusing on African American entertainers and public figures. For nearly 20 years, these two magazines were the only publications for African Americans in the United States.

Unable to obtain advertising in those years, Johnson created the Beauty Star mail-order company and began advertising its products, such as haircare products, wigs, and vitamins in his own magazines. In 1947 the company picked up its first major advertising account in Zenith Radio and, after sending a salesman to Detroit every week for nearly ten years, finally managed to sign Chrysler Corporation in 1954. The magazine drew the talents of many people, including author Era Bell Thompson (1905–1986), who served as associate editor of Ebony from 1948 to 1951, and co-managing editor from 1951 to 1964, before becoming international editor for the company thereafter.

In 1957 Ebony Fashion Fair blazed a trail of fashion excellence that has endured the test of time. Four gorgeous African American models brought fashion excitement to audiences in ten cities—Chicago; Indianapolis; New Orleans; Baltimore; Los Angeles; Dayton, Columbus, and Cleveland, Ohio; Philadelphia; and Washington, D.C.—where they displayed an array of dazzling American designer fashions. The late Freda DeKnight, Ebony magazine's home service director and Ebony Fashion Fair's first commentator, paraded fashions in homespun rhetoric weaving imaginary tales about each model and fashion. The 41st annual tour took place in the 1998–99 fashion season, with audiences still experiencing lively commentary, enriched with synthesizer programming, a drummer, a bassist, R&B, jazz, and song and dance routines performed by talented members of the troupe. Thirteen models moved swiftly down the runways and across stages in 1998 and 1999, emphasizing elegance and excitement as they displayed American and European fashions brilliant with color, detail, and pizzazz. At the conclusion of the 40th annual tour, funds raised since inception by sponsors of the show had reached $45 million, all designated for various charities and scholarships. By then the show had given 540 young people and 112 wardrobe assistants the opportunity to visit cities and countries of many cultures, and had been sponsored by more than 180 prestigious social and civic organizations, including the United Negro College Fund, the NAACP, and the Urban League.