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A Hidden Figure Revealed
Pioneer in Market Research Critical to Magazine’s Early Financial Success
Feb. 21, 2024, Chicago, Illinois — Ebony magazine’s November (1955) 10th-anniversary issue celebrated their success and a clear vision that Ebony planned to be around for a whilehttps://archive.org/details/sim_Ebony_1955-11_11_1/page/118/mode/2up.
That issue provides persuasive evidence pointing to Doris E. Saunders (1921-2014) as a pioneer and a hidden figure in the early financial success of Ebony Magazine and thus Johnson Publishing Company (JPC). The evidence also suggests the history of women in marketing research needs to be reexamined and re-framed with consideration given to the magnitude of Saunders’ groundbreaking work on behalf of JPC. Saunders’ market research efforts as early as 1949 were unprecedented. This woman’s insights and research regarding the ”Negro” market, opened the door for Ebony to “emerge as the leader in introducing hundreds of them (advertisers) to a $16 billion Negro market that had virtually gone untapped.”1
This is one of many stories* linked to my mother’s contributions during her professional career. I hope you will want to share it.
Before joining what was to become Johnson Publishing Company, Saunders was the highest-ranking African American in the Chicago Public Library system. She worked at the Main Library downtown in the social sciences and business division. Her specialty was researching and explaining census, demographic, and business data, needed by the predominately white business clientele.
Saunders related that in January 1949, wanting to escape workplace racism, she wrote to Ebony Publisher John H. Johnson indicating her desire to establish a special, in-house research library for his company. The library would provide editorial and advertising staff with research and reference materials on the “Negro” including demographic, marketing, and business information and data. Johnson offered Saunders the job immediately.
In less than six years, Saunders’ initiative and expertise had helped Ebony land on the radar of top trade publications who noted the magazine’s amazing advertising growth from 18-20 pages per issue in 1946 to an average of 60 pages per issue in 1955.
“Ebony Pioneers in Negro Advertising” is the headline with Saunders’ photo prominently displayed in the 10th anniversary issue of Ebony. https://archive.org/details/sim_Ebony_1955-11_11_1/page/130/mode/2up
The magazine states “ Saunders heads staff of researchers who supply marketing and census information for the Ebony advertising department and its clients.”
Saunders’ daughter Ann C. Saunders recently stated, “My mother’s contribution to JPC’s economic success and marketing history has been overlooked at best and at worst, left out. The truth clarifies and expands our understanding of marketing history and JPC’s history and its impact on the advertising business, society, and culture. This information does not diminish the contribution John H. Johnson made to the Black press, Black business, the African American Community, American enterprise, and the African Diaspora. Mr. Johnson and his publications were ambassadors and a service to the community.”
Saunders’ contributions to JPC were never limited to her responsibilities as Librarian, Market Researcher, or Book Division Director. She also documented her observations and research** regarding Johnson Publishing Company’s first 35 years 1942-1977 (her master’s thesis includes a case study of Ebony magazine).
Her career beyond JPC was rich, diverse, and full of “paying it forward”. https://www.c-span.org/video/?171756-1/covering-south – !.
Throughout her post-Ebony/JPC career Saunders recognized JPC as a tremendous springboard for her lifelong success. Her marketing work not only contributed to Ebony’s early financial success, but that success contributed to the growth of marketing, advertising, and supporting industries in white and black communities aross the nation. Ebony let the nation know it could be done. In a 2004 letter to John Johnson, Saunders stated, “I would not be me today if you had not been you.” One can now ask… if JHJ would have “succeeded against the odds” without Doris E. Saunders.
1.” Ebony Pioneers in Negro Advertising.” Ebony,vol.11 no.1, Nov. 1955. P131.
*Plain Born American Girl: The Doris E. Saunders Memoir © 2022 (unpublished), compiled by Ann C. Saunders
**Saunders, D.E. (1977) The Black Magazine after World War II and its Background [Masters thesis, Boston University}. © 2024 https://hdl.handle.net/2144/47966
If you have questions or obsrevations about the site or about Doris E. Saunders please contact ann@desaunders.site.
Welcome.
This website was designed to be a central location identifying the personal and professional contributions of Doris E. Saunders (1921 -2014). Saunders, a native of Chicago, Illinois was a trailblazing librarian, market researcher, businesswoman, author, editor, academic administrator, professor of journalism, genealogist, and public historian regarding the history of the Black Press and African American settlers in Illinois. Saunders’ accomplishments between 1947 and 1995 in many instances were unprecedented.Most of Saunders contributions are to be documented in some fashion on this site including a synopsis of her last manuscript Plain Born American Girl: The Doris E Saunders Memoir © 2022. In addition, her contributions to the Chicago Public Library; Johnson Publishing Company (Ebony, and Jet magazines); Public television in Chicago; Chicago State University, and Jackson State University only begin to allude to the breadth of her experience. The site director is eager to help provide further information. If you have questions or comments please contact us using the information in the contact box above or click on this link ann@desaunders.site.
Brief Biography of Doris E. Saunders:
Doris Elaine Evans was born in Chicago, IL in 1921 and grew up in the historic community of Bronzeville, one of the few places in the US with a high concentration of African American businesses to survive the heinous racist aggressions of the early twentieth century. From an early age, Doris reflected the influence of her grandmother Mattie Rice Pleasant, her tight-knit community, and the Chicago Defender newspaper. This means she was spoiled, and an early reader who eventually sought to serve, and be a friend, counselor, and teacher to benefit her community and her nation.
She attended Englewood High School and completed one semester at Northwestern University before dropping out. In early 1941 Doris found a direction for herself while attending Central YMCA College. Through her work-study supervisor in the library, she learned of the Chicago Public Library Training Class and began study with that program in May 1941. She completed the training within a year and began her first assignment with the Chicago Public Library (CPL) in 1942.
Doris married Sydney Smith shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Though Doris’ career at the CPL was short (7 years), it was nonetheless groundbreaking. She rose through the ranks quickly and by 1947 she had become Principal Reference Librarian in the Social Sciences and Business Division and the highest-ranking African American in the system. Her speciality at he the Main downtown library was researching census, demographic and marketing data for the downtown business clientel she mostly served. She was also divorced from Sydney Smith in 1947.
Doris’ initiative in 1949 led to an inspiring career with Chicago-based Johnson Publishing Company (JPC), EBONY, and JET magazines. There she developed a special in-house corporate research library and served as the librarian and researcher. This was the first and only corporate library of its kind in the nation and perhaps the world. At JPC Doris pioneered the use of census and demographic data supplied to the advertising staff and clients. This led to Ebony’s unprecedented growth in advertising sales and thus financial success by the mid 1950’s.
She married Vincent E. Saunders Jr., in 1950. In 1951, while working she completed a B. A. Degree in Philosophy at Roosevelt College (University). Doris gave birth two children in the early 1950’s.
In 1960 Doris was named director of JPC’s fledgling Book Division. She immediately put JPC on the map among the first black companies in the US publishing industry – producing the international bestseller Burn Killer Burn (1962) by death-row inmate Paul Crump; Lerone Bennett Jr.’s ground-breaking Before the Mayflower (1964), and What Manner of Man (1964), one of the earliest biographies of the Nobel Prize winner Martin Luther King Jr. A complete list of books published under her leadership follows. While director of the Book Division, Doris represented JPC at the famous Frankfurt Book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany. In its more than 500-year history Doris was the first African American and the first female representing the head of a head of a publishing house at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Doris was fired from JPC in 1966.
Doris went on to establish her own public relations firm Plus Factor and Information Inc., hosted the first of many radio programs. She also became a columnist and food editor for The Chicago Defender (1966-1970) and a columnist for The Chicago Courier (1970-1972).
Between 1968 and 1970 Doris Saunders wrote and co-produced the revolutionary public service program Our People for WTTW, Chicago’s public television station (two hundred programs). During this time Doris served as secretary to the Black Academy of Arts and Letters, under the leadership of, scholar and author, Dr. C. Eric Lincoln. From 1968-70 she also served as both Acting Director of Institutional Development and Director of Community Relations for Chicago State University. From 1970-1972 she served as a Staff Associate in the Office of the Chancellor, University of Illinois Chicago Circle Campus.
At John H. Johnson’s request, Saunders returned to the JPC Book Division as director between 1973-1978. During that time she achieved two master’s degrees at Boston University, one in journalism and one in Afro-American studies. She co-authored Black Society (1976), with Geri Major, a Harlem socialite, journalist, editor, newscaster, publicist, and community leader.
Doris left JPC in 1978 to become a professor and later Chair of the Mass Communications Department at Jackson State University (JSU) in Jackson, Mississippi. During this time, she led the successful journalism accreditation effort at JSU. This was the first journalism program in the state of Mississippi to be accredited. Additionally, she led the successful solicitation of a grant from the state to establish channel 23 TV, now JSU TV.
In 1982 Doris developed Ancestor Hunting, a tool for documenting one’s family history. She also developed and wrote Kith and Kin, a newsletter for helping people in their pursuit of researching and documenting their family history. Continuing her pursuit of education as a lifelong learner, from 1983-84 she was part of the Doctoral program at Vanderbilt University completing 52 hours in the history program. She was the visiting Distinguished Lecturer at the University of Mississippi, in the Department of Journalism in 1986. Saunders retired from JSU in 1996.
Doris wrote what would become the chapters of “Plain Born American Girl: The Doris E. Saunders Memoir” © 2022 (unpublished), before 2005. In 2005 dementia began to rob Doris of the memory of the people and details of her life’s journey. Doris died in March 2014 at age 93, leaving behind adoring family, former students, colleagues, and throngs of friends. Recognizing the importance of her experiences Doris established an archive of photos and materials (partially processed) in the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection in the Carter G. Woodson Regional Library, Chicago, IL.. She also belonged to many orginizations.
Publications
Co-Authored
Black Society, Geraldine Hodges Major with Doris Saunders, 1976.
Compiled and Edited
The Day They Marched, 1963.
The Kennedy Years and the Negro,1964.
The Negro Handbook, 1966
The Ebony Handbook, 1974.
DuBois: A Pictorial Biography by Shirley Graham DuBois, 1978
Special Moments: The Photographs of Moneta Sleet, Jr,1998
Other JPC Books Published under Saunders Leadership
Burn Killer Burn by Paul Crump 1962
Before the Mayflower by Lerone Bennett Jr. 1962
The Ebony Cookbook: A Date with a Dish by Freda De Knight 1962
Negro Firsts in Sports by A.S.” Doc” Young, Illustrated by Herbert Temple 1963
What Manner of Man by Lerone Bennett Jr. 1964
The Negro Mood by Lerone Bennett Jr. 1964
Black Man in Red Russia by Homer Smith 1964
Confrontation Black and White by Lerone Bennett Jr.1965
Marriage Across the Color Line edited by Cloyte M. Larsson 1965
The Ebony Success Library 1973
*What Color are You? Darwin Walton 1973
Ebony Pictorial History Vol.1-3 and 1973Yearbook, 1974
*The Legend of Africania by Dorothy W. Robinson, Illustrated by Herbert Temple 1974
*Color Me, Brown, by Lucille H. Giles 1974
The Shaping of Black America by Lerone Bennett Jr. Illustrated by Charles White 1975
* Little Tuffy and his ABCs by Jean Pajot Smith 1978
*Little Tuffy and His Friends by Jean Pajot Smith 1978 (in English and Spanish)
* Children’s Book titles
Other JPC publications
I Wouldn’t Take Nothin’ for My Journey by Leonidas H. Berry M.D., 1981
The publication was edited by Doris at the request of the author after Doris left JPC.
Unpublished Work
The Politician: The Life and Times of William L. Dawson, U.S. Congressman from Illinois’s First Congressional District. He served for 27 years and was also the first African American to chair a congressional committee.