African-American Educator, Entrepreneur & Inventor
In the 1920s, 30s and 40s, with the new freedom came business and financial success for many women in Missouri. One of the nation's wealthiest African Americans was Annie Malone, founder and owner of Poro College, a cosmetics firm that started in St. Louis and later occupied an entire city block in Chicago.
* Annie was one of the
first in Missouri to own a Rolls Royce
* Annie paid over $40,000 in taxes alone...in 1926
* Annie owned a whole city block in Chicago
* Annie's philanthropy was legendary
* Annie gave diamond rings for five years of service
* Annie gave cash awards for savings accounts & home purchases
* Annie trained well over 75,000 women entrepreneurs
* Annie trained Madam C.J. Walker to be a "Poro Agent"
* Annie paid over $40,000 in taxes alone...in 1926
* Annie owned a whole city block in Chicago
* Annie's philanthropy was legendary
* Annie gave diamond rings for five years of service
* Annie gave cash awards for savings accounts & home purchases
* Annie trained well over 75,000 women entrepreneurs
* Annie trained Madam C.J. Walker to be a "Poro Agent"
And if you are in the African American hair care or cosmetics industry, Annie is the "mother" of what you are doing. You are about to meet a remarkable woman...
Annie Malone: A Generous Entrepreneur:
You have heard of Oprah Winfrey? Sure, who hasn't? How about Madam C.J. Walker? No brainer. I can see heads nodding up and down
all over the place.
How about Annie Malone? Blank stares. Silence.
Crickets chirping. Never heard of her...
Yet, before Madam
Walker, Rosa Parks, Mary McLeod Bethune, Oprah Winfrey or Cathy Hughes there
was Annie Turnbo Malone (aka Annie Minerva Turnbo
Pope Malone and Annie Minerva Turnbo Malone), a remarkable woman who
made her mark during the early 20th century.
Malone is recorded
as one of America’s first black female
millionaires based on reports about her beauty and cosmetic
enterprises -- Poro -- headquartered in St. Louis and Chicago.
Annie Minerva Turnbo Malone (August 9,
1869—May 10, 1957) was an African-American businesswoman,
educator, inventor and philanthropist. Annie was two years
younger than Madam C. J. Walker. She had launched her hair care business
four years before Sarah Breedlove (later
known as Madam C. J. Walker). In the early 1900s Madam Walker worked as
a "Poro Agent" for Annie for about one year.
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In the first three decades of
the 20th century, she founded and developed a large and prominent commercial
and educational enterprise centered around cosmetics for
African-American women.
Annie
was born in Metropolis, Illinois to former slaves. She was the tenth of
eleven children born to Robert Turnbo, a poor farmer, and Isabella Cook
Turnbo. Because her parents died when she was young, Annie
was raised by her older sister in nearby Peoria, Illinois. She was a
sickly child and missed a lot of school which resulted in her having to
withdraw before completing high school.
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While she was coming of age, the popular
style among Black women was that of a “straight hair” look. Black women were
starting to turn their backs on the braided cornrow styles they’d associated
with the fields of slavery and began to embrace a look which, for them meant,
freedom and progression toward equality in America.
While in Peoria, Malone took an early
interest in hair textures. In the 1890s -- being a lover of styling hair --
Annie began to envision a way of straightening hair without having to use the
methods of old which included using soap, goose fat, heavy oils, butter and bacon grease or the carding combs of sheep. She’d
also witnessed the method of hair straightening which employed lye sometimes mixed with potatoes, but was turned off by
the procedure because it often resulted in damaged scalps and broken hair
follicles.
Coupled
with the influence of her aunt who was an herbal doctor and her knowledge
of Chemistry, Annie Turnbo developed a chemical which could be used to
straighten hair without causing damage to the hair or scalp. By the time she
was in her late 20′s, Turnbo had developed a straightening
solution which would grant her entry into the annuals of hair care history.
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By the beginning of the 1900s,
Annie Malone began to revolutionize hair care methods for all African
Americans. Armed with this revolutionary formula and a product she called “The Great Wonderful Hair Grower,” Annie moved to St. Louis in 1902. She hired
some assistants and began selling her products door-to-door. Word
of her products and teaching method spread like wild fire and soon her
products and her “Poro Method” of styling hair were a success.
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"Poro"
College:
Malone called it Poro, a West African (Mende) male secret or devotional
society -- an organization located throughout Liberia and Sierra Leone
dedicated to disciplining and enhancing the body spiritually and physically.
There were some elements of the term that seem to indicate beauty. Even though
it was not in vogue during that era, Annie wanted to connect her "Poro
Agents" to their African roots and this was her way of doing that. She and
her assistants sold her unique brand of hair care products door to door.
Malone believed that if African American
women improved their physical appearance, they would gain greater self-respect
and achieve success in other areas of their lives.
By 1917, as the United States entered World War I,
Annie Malone had become so successful that she founded and opened Poro College
in St. Louis. It was the first
educational institution in the United States dedicated to the study and
teaching of black cosmetology. The school reportedly graduated over
75,000 agents world-wide, including the Caribbean. The school employed nearly 200 people. Its curriculum included
instructions to train students on personal style to present themselves at work
-- walking, talking and style of dress designed to maintain a solid public
persona. The Poro College building was later purchased by St. James
African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and demolished in 1965 to construct
The James House.
The
Black Philanthropist:
By 1926, the college employed 175 people. Franchised outlets
in North and South America, Africa, and the Philippines employed some 75,000
women. Malone had become a wealthy woman. The Philadelphia Tribune reported
that in 1923 Annie Malone paid the highest income tax of any African American
in the country. For instance, her 1924 income tax payment totaled nearly
$40,000. However, despite her wealth, Malone lived conservatively and gave away
much of her fortune to help other African Americans. She is one of America's
first major black philanthropists.
A $25,000 donation from Malone helped build the St. Louis
Colored YWCA.
From 1919 to 1943,
Malone served as board president of the St. Louis Colored Orphan's Home. During
this time she raised most of the orphanage's construction costs. She donated
the first $10,000 to build the orphanage's new building in 1919. With
her help, in 1922 it bought a facility at 2612 Annie Malone Drive (formally
Goode Ave.) It continues to serve from the historic Ville neighborhood. Upgraded
and expanded, the facility was renamed in her honor as the Annie Malone
Children and Family Service Center in 1946.
Malone donated large sums to countless charities. During the
1920s, Malone's philanthropy included financing the education of two
full-time students in every historically black college and university in the
country. Her $25,000 donation to Howard University was among the largest gifts
the university had received by a private donor of African descent. She also
contributed to the Tuskegee Institute.
Malone was very generous with family and employees. She educated many of
her nieces and nephews and bought homes for her brothers and sisters. She
awarded employees with lavish gifts for attendance, punctuality, service
anniversaries, and as rewards for investing in real estate.
Malone also gave generously of her time in the community. She
was president of the Colored Women's Federated Clubs of St. Louis, an executive
committee member of the National Negro Business League and the Commission on
Interracial Cooperation, a lifelong Republican, and a member of the
African Methodist Episcopal Church. Annie was also an honorary member of Zeta
Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. -- founded January 16, 1920 on the campus of
Howard University in Washington, D.C.
The Chuck Berry
Connection:
Tens
of thousands of women were trained in the Poro System, but there was also a
famous male student who was born in St. Louis in 1926. Bruce Pegg states in his book, “Brown Eyed Handsome Man: The Life and Hard Times of Chuck
Berry,”
that almost every day, as a child growing up on Goode Avenue, Chuck Berry would
have walked past the stately columns of the St. Louis Colored Orphan’s Home on
the block next to the Berry family home (no longer standing).
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Later
on Chuck trained as a beautician under the Poro system, graduating in 1952.
Aside from the fact that he was following his sisters Thelma and Lucy (who had, by that time, abandoned their
music career in favor of the less glamorous but more stable occupation),
there was another compelling reason for Berry to consider cosmetology as a
career.
By
this time, both Annie Malone and Madam C.J. Walker had vividly shown nearly
every black community across the country, hairdressing was a vital means to
economic independence.
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Frederick Douglass, the former slave and abolitionist, had noted the significance of the
occupations to blacks when he wrote an editorial in 1853 titled “Learn Trades or Starve,"
arguing that blacks could gain greater economic independence if they were given
the opportunity to perfect useful skills.
One historian stated, “Barbershops, and
beauty parlors, were independent businesses with a steady clientele and, as
such, were important expressions of black entrepreneurial activity.”
Cutting hair and cosmetology was recession-proof.
It
was, simply, another extension of Booker T. Washington’s
philosophy of economic independence, and as such would have been a
tremendously attractive occupation to Chuck Berry at
the time. But we all know what happened to his music career in 1958 when "Johnny B. Goode" hit the charts.
The Decline of Annie's Marriage and Business:
Malone's generosity raised her stature in the community but also contributed to the financial decline of her business. While she was spending time on civic affairs and distributing her wealth to various organizations, she left the day-to-day affairs of the business in the hands of managers, including her husband. Some of these managers were inexperienced or dishonest, eventually leading to the dismantling of her business empire.
For the six years leading up to 1927, Annie and Aaron Malone became
embroiled in a power struggle over control of the Poro business. The struggle
was kept quiet until 1927, when Aaron Malone filed for divorce and demanded
half the business. He claimed that Poro's success was due to contacts he
brought to the company. He courted black leaders and politicians who sided with
him in the highly publicized divorce.
Annie Malone's devotion to black women and charitable
institutions led Poro workers and church leaders to support her. She also had
the support of the press and Mary McLeod Bethune, president of the National
Association of Colored Women. Having the support of so powerful a woman helped
Annie Malone prevail in the dispute and allowed her to keep her business. She
negotiated a settlement of $200,000.
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In 1930 and entering her 60s, Malone moved her
business to Chicago, where its location became known as the Poro block. Her
financial trouble continued when she became the target of lawsuits, including
one by a former employee who claimed credit for her success.
When
the suit was settled in 1937, she was forced to sell the St. Louis property.
Malone's business was further crippled by enormous debt to the government for
unpaid real estate and excise taxes. (The federal government required a 20
percent tax on luxuries, including hair-care products during the 1920s.)
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She suffered financially from the devastating divorce (her second) and, soon thereafter, by two civil lawsuits, all during the Great Depression. The lawsuits (for liability to an employee and a St. Louis newspaper) partially crippled her ability to conduct business.
ANNIE MALONE'S LEGACY: Credit Where Credit is Due
Malone's business failure tarnished her image. Her former employee, Madame C.J. Walker, often overshadows Malone because Walker's business remained successful and more widely known. Walker is often credited as the originator of the black beauty and cosmetics business and the direct distribution and sales agent system that Malone developed.
Many historians believe Malone deserves more credit for her devotion to helping African Americans gain financial independence and her generous donations to educational, civic, and social causes.
On May 10, 1957, Annie Turnbo Malone (87 years of age) was treated for a stroke at Provident Hospital in Chicago where she died. At the time of her death Poro beauty colleges were in operation in more than thirty U.S. cities.
HER LEGACY STILL LIVES ON:
St. Louis honors her memory with the Annie Malone Children and Family Service Center whose mission is "is to improve the quality of life for children, families, elderly and the community by providing social services, educational programs, advocacy and entrepreneurship."
Who Created the Hot Comb? Annie Malone or Madam Walker?
The answer is neither. It is reported that in 1872 a hairdresser named Marcel Grateau used a pressing comb on his clientele in Paris, who were trying to emulate the straight style of ancient Egyptian hair, but it’s not really known exactly who invented the device. Annie Malone was the first to patent a hot comb. Madame CJ Walker improved upon the comb by widening the teeth for use on black hair.
Cite:
For even more awesome information, history and photos please visit our resource sites at:
http://www.freemaninstitute.com/poro.htm
http://www.freemaninstitute.com/bhc.htm
Much Love, Dr.Shermaine #EnjoyTheRead #PleaseShare #KnowYourHistory #ShareYourHistory #CelebrateYourHistory
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