Johnson Publishing Company Archive Resource Guide

Photograph of Gwendolyn Brooks.

Ahad, Badia. "Confessions." Rethinking Therapeutic Culture. Edited by Timothy Aubry, and Trysh Davis (eds). University of Chicago Press, 2015. Chicago Scholarship Online, 2016.

Barrett, Nicola Essie. “Fashion Fair in a Fenty World: Intersectionality, White Privilege, and the Importance of Black-Owned Brands in the Cosmetic Industry Through Critical Ethnography.” M.A., Temple University, 2022.

Boone, Dorothy Deloris. “A Historical Review and a Bibliography of Selected Negro Magazines, 1910-1969.” Educat.D., University of Michigan, 1970. 

Brown, Korey Bowers. “Souled out: ‘Ebony’ Magazine in an Age of Black Power, 1965–1975.” Ph.D., Howard University, 2010. 

Bryant, Malika S. “Johnson Publishing Company’s Tan Confessions and Ebony: Reader Response through the Lens of Social Comparison Theory.” Ohio University, 2021. 

Christian, Margena A. “John H. Johnson: A Historical Study on the Re-Education of African Americans in Adult Education through the Selfethnic Liberatory Nature of Magazines.” Ed.D., National-Louis University, 2013. 

De Freece-Wilson, Eileen. “Era Bell Thompson: Chicago Renaissance Writer.” Rutgers University - Graduate School - New Brunswick, 2010. 

Dennis, Carolyn. “The Growth and Development of the Johnson Publishing Company.” Michigan State University (School of Journalism), 1971. 

Edgar, Donna and Morris, Naja "Shaping the American Workforce: Johnson Publishing's Influence on African American Labor." 2025

Fenderson, Jonathan Bryan. “‘Journey toward a Black Aesthetic’: Hoyt Fuller, the Black Arts Movement & the Black Intellectual Community.” University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2011. 

Henderson, Laretta. “Ebony Jr.!: A Sociohistorical and Cultural Analysis.” University of Iowa, 2003. 

Jones, Julius Langston. “Cultures of Aspiration: African American Chicago, 1929 to 1959.” The University of Chicago, 2022. 

Manuel, Meaghan J. “Specters in the Black Metropolis: Leslie Hewitt, David Hartt, and the Johnson Publishing Company.” University of London (Courtauld Institute of Art), 2015.

Saddler, Valerie Stephanie. “A Content Analysis of Ebony’s and Life’s 1955-1965 Reporting on Black Civil Rights Movement Issues.” Ph.D., Ohio University, 2003. 

Saunders, Doris E. "The Black magazine since World War II and its background." Boston University, 1977.

West, James. “Ebony Magazine, Lerone Bennett, Jr., and the Making and Selling of Modern Black History, 1958-1987.” University of Manchester, 2016.