BLACK BEAUTY: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BLACK BEAUTY INDUSTRY

BY ELLEN TERRELL

Sarah Breedlove, more commonly known by the name, Madame C.J. Walker and Anne T. Malone, are perhaps two of the better-known African American entrepreneurs who made their fortunes in the beauty and hair industry. However, Marjorie Joyner, Rose Meta Morgan, Anthony Overton, and John H. Johnson also made lasting contributions to the beauty and hair industry, paving the way for eventual brands, including the pop musician Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty. Many African Americans have made an impact on the industry. Here are five notable African American businesswomen and businessmen in the trade.

ANTHONY OVERTON, March 21, 1865 – July 2, 1946

Born into slavery in 1865, Anthony Overton became a leading African American entrepreneur during the twentieth century with the establishment of his Chicago-based empire. However, before moving to Chicago, Illinois, in 1898, Overton created the Overton Hygienic Manufacturing Company in Kansas City, Missouri. The company sold baking powder, cosmetics, perfumes, hair products, and toiletries. In 1911, Overton moved his company to Chicago. The company’s success allowed Overton to employ over four hun- dred people, and in 1912, they exported over fifty-two cosmetic products to countries including Egypt, Liberia, and Japan. The success of his hygienic company made it possible for Overton to establish The Douglass National Bank, The Victory Life Insurance Company, The Half-Century Magazine, The Chicago Bee, and The Great Northern Realty Company.

The Overton – Hygienic Manufacturing Co., 1925. From the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Permanent Wave Machine

M. S. Joyner

Patent: 1,693,515

Issue Date: November 27, 1928

MARJORIE JOYNER, October 24, 1896 – December 27, 1994

In 1916, Marjorie Joyner opened her first salon on Chicago’s South State Street. Joyner’s experience in beauty and hair led to her creation of a permanent hair-wave machine. In 1928, Joyner filed a patent petition for her invention, stating, “The object of the invention is the construction of a simple and efficient machine that will wave the hair of both white and colored women.” Although Joyner never received payment for her creation, she continued to give back to the community. In 1945, Joyner co-founded the United Beauty School Owners and Teachers Association and the Alpha Chi Pi Omega Sorority and Fraternity. The sorority and fraternity, which seeks to “uplift the educational and economic standards of the beauty industry,” is still in existence today.

Detroit Tribune. 19 May 1948.

ROSE META MORGAN, August 9, 1912 – December 16, 2008

As with Marjorie Joyner, Rose Meta Morgan opened her first salon, the Rose Meta House of Beauty, albeit decades later in 1945, in New York. The salon offered hair and skin care, as well as other services catering to black women. Several newspapers had advertisements for the grand opening of the salon, including the May 29, 1948, issue of The Detroit Tribute, in which it stated, “Women, This is What You’ve Been Waiting For!

Everything to Make You Beautiful All Under One Roof.” Just a year later, Ebony deemed her salon “the biggest Negro beauty parlor in the world.” The salon went on to amass more than $3 million in sales only a few years after opening. As with Anthony Overton, Morgan’s entrepreneurial interests expanded beyond the beauty business to eventually include banking. In 1964, Morgan helped start Freedom National Bank, a blackowned commercial bank operating in New York.

TO LEARN MORE:

• Explore the Library Guide Business of Beauty: A Resource Guide, as well as the blog posts Madam C.J. Walker and The Beauty Entrepreneur: Madam C. J. Walker

• Read the book African American Millionaires by Otha Richard Sullivan or African-American Inventors by Fred M. B. Amram and Susan K. Henderson for a more general overview of African American entrepreneurs.

In 1942, John H. Johnson founded Johnson Publishing Company, which published Negro Digest, Ebony, and Jet magazines. However, in addition to Johnson’s commercial ventures in magazine and book publishing, he owned Supreme Beauty Products and Fashion Fair Cosmetics, the largest black-owned cosmetics company in the world at the time. Fashion Fair was created with the goal of creating makeup to meet the specific needs of women of color, and they went on to manufacture skin care, fragrance and hair care products. The National Visionary Leadership Project did an oral history interview with Johnson in 2002.

RIHANNA, February 20, 1988 – Present

Although perhaps best known for being one of the most famous and recognized female pop musicians of our time, Rihanna became the world’s wealthiest female musician and a respected entrepreneur with the launch of Fenty Beauty. The company brought in $570 million in profit in only 15 months after its opening. Known for its inclusive branding, Rihanna created Fenty Beauty with the goal of creating products that “performed across all skin types and tones.” Contributions from Anthony Overton with his cosmetic empire to Rose Meta Morgan with her enormously successful black beauty salons to Rihanna in the present day with her cosmetics line, there have been significant changes to the beauty and hair industry for African American consumers.

• For biographies on the people listed above, read The Merchant Prince of Black Chicago: Anthony Overton and the Building of a Financial Empire by Robert E. Weems Jr. and search the Library of Congress’ Catalog for more.

• View Doing Historical Company Research to learn how to conduct more in-depth research on these African American entrepreneurs and their companies.

Advertisement showing images of cold cream, and hair and complexion products, 1920.