Every year on April 22, the BBB of Chicago and Northern Illinois celebrates another anniversary of the opening of the Chicago Office, mindful that the movement has come a long way since the organization first was founded in 1912, four years after the FBI started in 1908.
According to a BBB news release, in the beginning, Samuel Dobbs, president and chairman of Coca-Cola, led a national team of business leaders to uphold truth in advertisements. A very active and vigilant team, first calling itself the “Better Advertising Bureau,” then evolved and opened the doors of the first Chicago BBB office in 1926.
The Bureau has remained committed to its work through good times and bad, protecting businesses and educating consumers during the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the Great Recession and the historical pandemic.
