W P Burrell and D E Johnson (2 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Good. 1st Edition. Twenty-Five Years of the Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers 1881-1905. Illustrated. By W. P. Burrell, G. W. Secretary and D. E. Johnson, Sr. Richmond, VA, 1909. First Edition. 513 p. Original maroon cloth binding measures 8.75 x 5.5 , 8vo. In good condition. Boards normally scuffed at edges and worn/bumped at corners. Head and tail of spine bumped with some frayed cloth. Gilt lettering on spine completely rubbed off - illegible. Gilt lettering and insignia on front board normally soiled, but legible. Top edge of text-block gilt (soiled). Permanent ownership ink stamps on front paste-down & end-page: Andrew J. Oliver, Attorney-at-Law, Roanoke Virginia . Normal toning and age-staining through text-block. Binding intact. Please see photos and ask questions, if any, before purchasing. Grand United Order of True Reformers was an African-American fraternal organization founded in 1873 in Alabama and Kentucky. Originally managed by deputies of the all-white, pro-temperance organization, the Independent Order of Good Templars, the Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers, or the True Reformers, was re-organized in 1875 by William Washington Browne in Richmond, Virginia. This organization existed as a business and a mutual-aid society during the era of Jim Crow segregation laws, and it supported the growing African-American middle class through economic opportunities and education, before its closure in 1934. Although the Grand Fountain operated until 1934, it was never the same after 1910, when an embezzlement scandal and a number of large loan defaults caused the bank to close its doors. William Patrick Burrell (1865 - 1952), business leader, was the first of the children of William Patrick Burrell and Mildred Burrell to be born free. His father worked as a butler and waiter in Richmond, and his mother took in washing. His uncle James Burrell obtained an education during slavery and became a leader in the city's African American community immediately after the Civil War. Burrell attended the Baker School and the Richmond Colored Normal School, from which he graduated in 1884. At age twelve he joined the Moore Street Baptist Church and eventually became its treasurer and a deacon. Early in 1881 the church's sexton introduced Burrell to William Washington Browne, who had recently arrived in Richmond from Alabama to reinvigorate the United Order of True Reformers, a temperance organization. Browne proposed to make the True Reformers a mutual benefit society, requiring members to purchase a death-benefit certificate that obligated the order to pay a sum of money to the member's heirs. After Richmond members agreed to his plan, Browne hired Burrell as his secretary. First Edition. Original binding. RAREA1909BTVV - 09/25 - HK2669.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. First edition. Tall octavo. 513pp. Red cloth titled and decorated in gilt. Frontispiece portrait photograph, heavily illustrated mostly with portraits, from photographs, woodcuts, and wood engravings. Tiny creases on a few consecutive leaves, a bit of rubbing at the foot, and spine lettering dull but readable, very good. The Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers (GFUOTR) was the most significant African-American mutual aid society in Richmond. Founded by William Washington Browne, the GFUOTR was chartered by the Good Templars, and evolved into a Black-owned and operated business empire, in its time the largest and most successful Black-owned association in the county. The mutual aid societies were of critical importance in the Black communities of the South after the Civil war, working with fraternal organizations and Black churches to created business networks for African-Americans who found themselves exiled outside the mainstream economy.