Charles W. Chesnutt to Swan E. Micheaux, 23 September 1921
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September 23, 1921.
Micheaux Film Corporation,1
538 South Dearborn Street,
Chicago, Ill.
Attention Mr. S. E. Micheaux.
Dear Sirs:
I am in receipt of your favor of September 29th2 enclosing me your check dated October 1st for $100.58, in payment of your note due September 15th for $100.00 with interest to October 1st.3
Your failure to meet the note led to its being protested, for which I paid a protest fee of $2.31, which you ought to take care of. I will deposit the check on October 1st, and hope it will be taken care of.
The notes which you gave me were payable at the Union Trust Company, Cleveland.4 They should have been made payable at your bank in Chicago, and with your permission I will strike out of the notes "The Union Trust Company, Cleveland, Ohio," and insert the name of your bank in Chicago, at which they can be presented for payment.
I shall appreciate it very much if you will try to take care of these notes as they fall due, so that I shall not be annoyed with the trouble and expense due to their having been protested for non-payment.
Page 2.
I visited the theatre on Central Avenue5 where your picture "The Gunsaulus Case" was shown,6 and enjoyed it very much. The picture was well made, and gives me reason to feel confident that the "House Behind the Cedars" will not suffer at your hands.7
Sincerely yours, CWC/FLCorrespondent: Swan Emerson Micheaux (1896–1975) was Oscar Micheaux's younger brother and served as secretary, treasurer, and booking manager of the Micheaux Film Corporation from 1920 to 1927. He was suspected of financial mismanagement and forced to resign in 1928.
1. The Micheaux Film Corporation began in 1919 as the Micheaux Book and Film Company. Founded by Black novelist, film director, and film producer Oscar Micheaux (1884–1951), it was based in Chicago, with offices in New York City and Roanoke, Virginia, and became the most successful Black-owned film company of the 20th century. In the 1920s and '30s, Micheaux produced at least three dozen films featuring Black actors and themes he believed to be of particular interest to Black audiences, three of them based loosely on Chesnutt's work. In 1928, the company voluntarily filed for bankruptcy, reorganized, and survived until 1940. Most of the films are lost. [back]
2. Pratt's letter to Chesnutt was dated September 19, not September 29. [back]
3. Chesnutt came to an arrangement regarding the movie-rights contract for his novel The House Behind the Cedars with Micheaux Film Corporation, which produced a series of five $100.00 promissory ("cognovit") notes, each due on the 15th of the month (September to January). These were paid with delays and incurred additional interest and penalties: the September note was paid on October 1; the October note around November 13; November's on December 4; and December's not until May 1922. The last note was not paid at all. Chesnutt declined several offers of stocks or bonds in the company in trade for the notes, and passed 25% of each payment on to Houghton Mifflin Company. [back]
4. The Union Trust Company was the third-largest Cleveland bank trust, by 1920 a large nationwide bank following several mergers. In 1924, Chesnutt's company began renting offices in the brand-new Union Trust Building that housed the bank's headquarters. Many of his investments were also with Union Trust. After the stock market collapse in 1929, he had to service a $18,500 loan for which the collateral had been stock market shares that were now worthless; the company also held the mortgage for his home at 9719 Lamont St. and for at least one rental property he owned (11900–02 Superior Ave.). Union Trust survived the early years of the Depression, but was not allowed to reopen after another collapse of the Cleveland banks in February 1933. [back]
5. The Temple Theatre (or Theater) at East 55th and Central Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio, catered to Black audiences. It seated just under 600 people and operated from the late 1910s to around 1945. Micheaux's Gunsaulus Mystery was initially advertised to run there from May 23-27, 1921, but the showings were delayed by a week. See Cleveland Gazette, May 21, 1921: 3; May 28, 1921: 3, and June 4, 1921: 3. Chesnutt saw the film at some point during this time. [back]
6. The Gunsaulus Mystery was a Micheaux Film Corporation movie released in the spring of 1921. It was based on the murder trial and lynching of a Jewish factory superintendent, Leo Frank (1884–1915), in which a Black janitor was involved as an accomplice. [back]
7. The lost 1924 silent film version of The House Behind the Cedars, produced by the Micheaux Film Corporation with a script by Oscar Micheaux (1884–1951), was very loosely based on Chesnutt's novel. It was filmed in 1923 in Roanoke, Virginia, and New York City, starring the Black actors Shingzie Howard (1902–1992) as Rena, Lawrence Chenault (1877–1943) as her White suitor, and Douglass Griffin as Frank Fowler. It premiered at Philadelphia’s Royal Theater in December 1924 and was shown in the spring of 1925 in Black movie theaters nationwide. Chesnutt saw it, but it is not known when. Micheaux later remade the film with sound under the title Veiled Aristocrats (1932) without notifying Chesnutt. [back]
