Thomas Frederick Bell, Jr. (May 10, 1875 – June 9, 1934) was an American

millionaire A millionaire is an individual whose net worth or wealth is equal to or exceeds one million units of currency. Depending on the currency, a certain level of prestige is associated with being a millionaire. In countries that use the short scal ...

heir, the son of banker Thomas Bell and his wife Teresa.

Mary Pleasant litigation

Bell's father had been an associate of African-American businesswoman

Mary Ellen Pleasant Mary Ellen Pleasant (August 19, 1815 – January 11, 1904) was a 19th-century entrepreneur, financier, real estate magnate and abolitionist. She was arguably the first self-made millionaire of African-American heritage, preceding Madam C. J. Wal ...

, and with her assistance he had built a fortune of $30 million ($ million today). He died in 1892 after falling down a flight of stairs, leaving a third of his estate and a substantial allowance to his family. Mary Pleasant and Teresa Bell oversaw the family finances together, but by 1897 the family was deeply in debt. Fred Bell blamed Pleasant, and he filed a series of lawsuits directed at gaining control of the estate. The litigation perpetuated the image of Pleasant, a light-skinned woman who had once passed for white, as a devious " mammy." The first lawsuit, filed against Teresa, claimed that she was wasting the family fortune under Pleasant's influence, and demanded that she be removed as head of the household. Two years later Bell publicly accused Pleasant of murdering his father, and Teresa evicted her from the family home. The litigation continued even after Pleasant's death in 1904.

Career

Teresa Bell died in 1922, leaving her children $5 each. They successfully fought the will in court. Out of his mother's $1,000,000.00 estate Fred received only $75,000.00. He invested his money in the stock market, benefitting handsomely from the ongoing stock boom, and was known as "Champagne Fred." By his own admission at the time of the death of his third wife Alvide H. Thurson in May 1929 he was broke. The

1929 stock market crash The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange colla ...

left him destitute. Bell, impoverished despite his three-piece suit and cane, came to symbolize the country's reversal of fortune during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. He lost his fortune in the stock market crash so he sold apples to support himself. On March 7, 1931, a photographer made a picture of him selling apples on a street corner in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. He died in a poor house.San Bernardino Sun, Volume 43, 27 December 1936 p.25
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, Fred 1875 births 1934 deaths