Chicago World
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The Chicago World was a weekly newspaper published every Saturday, and is believed to have run from 1918 to around 1953. The paper was established by Jacob R. Tipper (1873-1943) of Bainbridge, Georgia. Tipper's wife, Mrs. Stella M. Tipper also played an important role in the management of the paper, described as having "mothered the paper through many trying experiences" (May 7, 1949). The Tippers moved to Chicago from Georgia around 1908, opening a grocery store and market soon after their arrival. Jacob Tipper, while never occupying paid public office, was an active member of the Republican party. Tipper was elected as a delegate to a National Republican Convention and was a protégé of Edward H. Wright in Chicago's Second Ward.
In 1918, Tipper began the publication as the Chicago Enterprise. According to the August 27, 1949 issue of the World, the Enterprise was renamed the Chicago World in 1928. The Enterprise gradually grew in circulation, reaching 40,000 people each week at its height. According to Myiti Sengstacke Rice, the World's staff of ten ran a printing plant with $35,000 worth of equipment a block away from the Chicago Defender, at 3611 South Indiana (Rice, "Robert Sengstacke Abbot, 1868-1940," in Building the Black Metropolis: African American Entrepreneurship in Chicago, 2017, 55-6).
Political coverage in consulted issues of the World suggests the editor's support of the Republican party, with the endorsement of Republican political candidates, including support for 1948 presidential candidate Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York. Front-page news contains local, national, and international news, including reports on crime, relief efforts, politics, death, illness, business, and sports. The paper also includes cartoons, book reviews, church news, a theater page, and a society page.
Like competing Chicago Black metropolitan newspapers, such as the Chicago Whip [LCCN: sn86056950] and the Chicago Defender [LCCN: sn84037018], coverage focused on Black leaders and the elite, this included news of figures in popular culture and entertainment, such as the victories of boxer Joe Louis and news of performers like Josephine Baker and Nat King Cole. Beginning in 1948, the paper included a dedicated news section for Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and a women's section. The editorial page of the surviving 1934 and 1935 issues designates the World as the official organ of the Illinois Housewives Association, "a nonprofit organization, headquartered in Chicago, [which] accomplished social and philanthropic activities as well as demonstrated improved housekeeping skills to African American women" (Linda Wilson, "Biographical Sketch of Pinkie B. Belcher Reeves," Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street, 2019).
The production of the World was a family affair, which led to Jacob Tipper being the head of a prominent newspaper family in Chicago. After Tipper's death in 1943, the paper was left to his widow. The Tippers had two sons, Ernest Tipper and Harry K. Tipper. Ernest Tipper "had distinguished himself as a linotype and printing expert" and, for some time, managed the paper's circulation department (August 27, 1949). While Ernest passed prior to his father, after the death of Stella M. Tipper in 1946, Harry took over as managing editor and as the last surviving member of the Tipper dynasty. After Harry's passing in 1949, Vivian V. Tipper, Harry's widow, took ownership of the paper.