Anderson Holman and his family developed Springfield properties to provide affordable housing for people of modest means. His designs and business practices made home ownership a reality for African Americans and immigrants in a time when discrimination limited many to poor-quality rental housing.
1856 - 1880
Anderson Holman was born to enslaved parents in Platte county, Missouri on January 26, 1856. He lived with his parents in the county for five years before being moved to Louisville, Kentucky and enslaved there. Holman was enslaved for approximately one year before he was able to attain his freedom.
After becoming a freedman, Holman moved throughout the midwestern United States for nearly twenty years working a number of different jobs and living in different states. In 1862, he moved to Jeffersonville in Clark county, Indiana where he stayed for six years. Then in 1868, he moved to Macon City, Missouri where he worked on a farm until 1878. After this, he worked for two years for a man named John Robinson, a stock feeder, in Morgan County, Missouri. Then, after nineteen years of work and travel throughout the Midwest, Holman moved to Illinois and settled in Springfield.
1880 - 1935
Anderson Holman first arrived in Springfield, Illinois and was listed as having moved there by June of that year by the United States Census. Soon after moving to the city, on June 12, 1880, he married his first wife Georgia Ann. The Holmans then moved into a home near South Fourteenth and Brown street in Springfield and shortly after. Holman began his early work as a builder working for Cook Irvin in town and was part of the team that built the Illinois Watch Factory. Holman, being an African American man, was only making around $1.50 per day on the job, but soon managed to get a raise to $1.75 after learning the bricklaying trade.
After working as a builder and bricklayer for most of his time in Springfield, in the late 1890s, he became a full time contractor in Springfield offering his homebuilding services to those who needed them. His wife Georgia worked alongside him in his work developing properties. Holman primarily provided affordable housing for people of African American descent and migrants in Springfield as the city was not willing to provide livable housing. Through his business, Holman offered Springfield’s African Americans and recent immigrants an opportunity to escape poor-quality rental housing.
Aside from his work, Holman was an active community and religious leader, serving as a deacon of the Zion Baptist Church, Springfield’s oldest African American congregation. The church’s members were often involved in planning the black community’s annual celebration commemorating the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. The event included a parade through downtown Springfield streets.
During his marriage with Georgia, the two had at least seven children together including Ralph, Willard, Millard, Ezra, Lester, Margaret, and Tharebia. Sadly Ezra, Margaret, and Tharebia died while the two were together, and Georgia would follow them when she passed on April 17, 1925. Holman later re-married to Laura P. Hudson in March 1926. Throughout his lifetime, Anderson Holman helped others to find their place in the Springfield community by building homes for people of modest means. Several of Holman’s sons followed their father into the construction trades. Ralph became a bricklayer the same as his father while two other sons Millard and Willard became a carpenter and painter respectively. Anderson Holman passed away on April 9, 1935 and was survived by Laura and four of his sons, Ralph, Millard, Willard, and Lester.