The Filson Historical Society Digital Projects

Mr. Arthur D. Doss: Portrait of a Black President

A panoramic photograph of African-American life insurance agents, including (from left to right) Rev. J.H. Taylor, [?] Howard, Wash. Jordan Jr., Bernice McMurray, Rosa Vocum, an unidentified woman, W.R. Taylor, Hayes Bransford, A. Douglas Doss, Supt., H.F. Jones, [?] Utterback, Georgia Thomas, Mary Murphy, Luema Bolden, Eakins, Lee Miles, and Thomas Horney (017PC39.07).

The second president of Mammoth Life Arthur Douglass Doss—known as A. D. Doss—sitting in a chair in an office. The inscription on the back of the photograph reads, "Mr. Arthur D. Doss 2nd President Co." (017PC39.09).

Page five of The Louisville Leader published on Saturday, January 1, 1949 that appears to be an ad taken out by the company under President Arthur Douglass Doss, known as A. D. Doss (Mss. C M ovsz.)

2017.23.8_A. D. Doss (1984) by Sam Jurige.jpg

A pastel portrait of the second president of Mammoth Life, Arthur Douglass Doss, known as A. D. Doss (2017.23.8).

After the deaths of co-presidents William H. Wright and Henry E. Hall, Arthur D. Doss took over as the second president of Mammoth Life and Accident Insurance, Co. Doss was born in Alabama to Mary Hanson on March 1, ca. 1882. A veteran of WWI, by 1930 he was living in Louisville, Kentucky with his wife, Effie Doss, and two children, Mary A. Doss and Arthur Doss, Jr. He held various roles in the company and worked his way up from an insurance agent to the district manager of a branch office in Indianapolis, Indiana. Mammoth Life marketed itself as, “…an insurance company of, by, and for Negros in Kentucky." Arthur D. Doss's career trajectory exemplified that message.

Futher Reading:

Ancestry.com.