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Hygienic Manufacturing Company

bank building in Chicago, United States of America

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 5, 2026
Entity authorityQ14688000 ↗
Source-derived summary

Hygienic Manufacturing Company, also known as Overton Hygienic Company, was a cosmetics company established by Anthony Overton. It was one of the United States's largest producers of African-American cosmetics. Anthony Overton also ran other businesses from the building, including the Victory Life Insurance Company and Douglass National Bank, the first nationally chartered, African-American-owned bank. The Overton Hygienic Building is a Chicago Landmark and part of the Black Metropolis-Bronzeville District in the Douglas community area of Chicago, Illinois. It is located at 3619-3627 South State Street.

The building was commissioned by Anthony Overton in 1922 as a combination of a store, office, and manufacturing building. It was regarded as one of the most important buildings within the district. Overton would later commission the Chicago Bee Building in 1929.

Walter T. Bailey, the first licensed African-American architect in the state of Illinois, had his first Chicago office on the second floor of the Overton Hygienic Building.

The building was later named the Palace Hotel and served for some time as a flophouse, with residents crowded into stalls 8 feet by 5½ feet.

Editorial summary

“Hygienic Manufacturing Company” enters the record as bank building in Chicago, United States of America. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Hygienic, Manufacturing and Company can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewMost useful as a place-based finding aid connecting the present description to earlier jurisdictions, maps and built evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1922, 1929—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1922. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Hygienic, Manufacturing and Company.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Hygienic Manufacturing Company” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Hygienic, Manufacturing and Company provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q14688000. Authority coordinates are 41.828, -87.626. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1922 and 1929.

Critical limits

A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Hygienic Manufacturing Company”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Hygienic Manufacturing Company primary sources, Hygienic Manufacturing Company archive and Hygienic research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Hygienic Manufacturing Company”?
  2. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
  3. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Hygienic Manufacturing Company” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.