History of the Mosaic Templars of America - Its Founders and Officials

Little Rock: Central Printing Company, 1924. Good.. 291pp., plus thirty-one photographic portrait plates. Publisher's green cloth with titles stamped in black. Considerable wear and staining to boards, edges worn. Hinges partially separated but holding by mull cloth. Latter portion of text dampstained. A well-worn copy of a rather scarce book. An uncommon work detailing the history, activities, and prominent early members of the Mosaic Templars of America. According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, the Mosaic Templars was "an African-American fraternal organization offering mutual aid to the Black community, founded in Little Rock (Pulaski County) in (truncated) 1882 and incorporated in 1883 by two former slaves, John Edward Bush and Chester W. Keatts. Taking its name from the biblical character of Moses, the organization offered illness, death, and burial insurance to African Americans at a time when white insurers refused to treat Black customers equally. The name metaphorically linked the organization’s services to African Americans and the oppressive conditions of the Jim Crow South to Moses’s leadership during the Israelites’ Exodus from slavery in Egypt and into the Promised Land. At its peak in the 1920s, the organization had an estimated membership of over 100,000 members and had chapters in twenty-six states, the Caribbean, and South and Central America. Headquartered in Little Rock throughout its existence, the MTA exemplified a successful black-owned business enterprise."

The photographic portrait plates picture the founders J.E. Bush and C.W. Keatts, the editors of the current work A.E. Bush and P.L. Dorman, as well as about forty additional members of the organization, including several women who worked in both local chapters and for the national organization, often printed in pairs and with accompanying biographical details. The editors were themselves notable members of the Mosaic Templars; Aldridge E. Bush was the son of the co-founder, John E. Bush; Percy L. Dorman was a field agent for the Arkansas Council of Defense during the First World War.

OCLC records nine physical institutional copies, at Central Arkansas, Auburn-Montgomery, Arkansas-Mullins, U.C. North Regional Library, Howard, Harvard, Kansas City Public, Louisville Public, and New York Public. Not in Blockson or the Library Company's Afro-Americana Collection.
Work, p.414. (Inventory #: 3578)