Oscar W. Johnson has been throughout the course of his entire business career in the insurance business. When he came to it in 1912, he brought to his office as adjuster and supervisor of claims for the State of Rhode Island for the Employees Liability Assurance Corporation of Boston, a ripe experience gained through many previous years in the employ elsewhere of the same company. This experience has since been augmented until now he ranks as one of the most able insurance men in New England in his particular field. Mr. Johnson is a public-spirited citizen of Providence whose cooperation can be relied upon to help further all projects looking toward the betterment of the city. He has a keen interest in sports, particularly baseball, football, and boxing, and in the pursuit of this hobby, as well as in his business relationships, he has made a host of friends about Providence.
Born April 11, 1880, in Roxbury, Massachusetts, Mr. Johnson is the son of John and Mary (Anderson) Johnson, both natives of Sweden and now deceased. John Johnson was a piano manufacturer and cabinet-maker throughout his life and did much excellent work after his coming to New England. The subject of this sketch attended the public schools of Boston but at the early age of fifteen found employment with the insurance concern with which he has since been connected, the Employees Liability Assurance Corporation. He began his career with the organization as a junior clerk but, in 1904, after various intermediary promotions, he was made an investigator and adjuster. In this capacity in the Boston office he continued until his transference to Providence in 1912, with the scope of his operations and responsibility extended to the entire State of Rhode Island. Fraternally, Mr. Johnson is affiliated with Doric Lodge, No. 38, Free and Accepted Masons, and his religious allegiance is with the Lutheran Church. While he maintains an attitude of independence for the most part in politics, believing that the personality and capabilities of the individual candidate rather than his party affiliations are important in the filling of local offices at least, Mr. Johnson has at times been closely associated with affairs of the Republican party and during his residence in Boston served as a member of the Republican Committee of Twenty-third Ward.
In 1904 Mr. Johnson married Alma J. Dahlquist, who had come to America from Sweden, her birthplace. They became the parents of a son, A. Stanley Johnson, now an investigator with the Employees Liability Assurance Corporation, connected with the Providence office.
Source: Carroll, Charles. Rhode Island: Three Centuries of Democracy, vol 3 of 4. New York: Lewis historical Pub. Co., 1932.