Original Founder of the Black Hair Industry And First Black Female Millionaire
Annie Turnbo Malone
(1869-1957) was an African American entrepreneur and philanthropist during the
early 20th century. She manufactured a line of beauty products for black women
and created a unique distribution system that helped thousands of black women
gain self respect and economic independence. However, her contributions to
African American culture are often overlooked because her business empire
collapsed from mismanagement. One of her students, Madame C.J. Walker, created
a similar enterprise and is largely credited with originating the black beauty
business, a feat that rightly belongs to Malone.
Personal
Information
Born Annie
Minerva Turnbo, August 9, 1869, in Metropolis, IL; daughter of Robert (a
farmer) and Isabella (Cook) Turnbo; married Mr. Nelson Pope, c. 1903 (marriage
ended); married Aaron Malone, c. 1914 (divorced, 1927); died, 1957.
Career
Founder of
hair care product line for African Americans; developed business into the Poro
System, a network of 75,000 franchised agent-operators who operated salons
under Malone's guidelines using Poro products. Founded Poro College, 1917, in
St. Louis, MO, the first school for the training of beauty culture specialists
for African American clientele. First Black female millionaire and was also
actively involved in numerous philanthropic organizations.
Born August 9, 1869, on a farm in Metropolis, Illinois, Malone was the tenth of eleven children of Robert and Isabella Turnbo. Unfortunately her parents died at an early age and Annie Minerva was taken in by an older sister in Peoria, Illinois. As with young women, her own hairstyle was a particular preoccupation, but she grew dissatisfied with the methods then in use by African American women of her generation that involved goose fat, soap, or other oils for straightening purposes. Stronger products on the market damaged the hair follicles or scalp in their efforts to straighten naturally kinky hair. Malone formulated and perfected a line of products that was sold in local stores around her home in Lovejoy, Illinois, by 1900. One of her products was called the Wonderful Hair Grower, and it is thought that around this time Malone invented the pressing iron and comb, a hair-straightening device.
In 1902, Malone relocated from Lovejoy to St. Louis, Missouri, in an effort to expand her business opportunities. She successfully conducted door-to-door sales by herself and three assistants; they offered free hair treatments to women on the spot in an effort to sell the products. Malone undertook a sales tour of the South in 1903; records show she also wed around this time, but she and her husband were divorced when he attempted to exert control over her thriving business. She also opened her own salon, and a year later her "Poro" products, as she called them, were being sold throughout the Midwest. The word "poro" is a West African term that denotes an organization whose aim is to discipline and enhance the body in both physical and spiritual form. She copyrighted the name in 1906. Poro's sales were spurred by Malone's understanding and use of modern business practices, such as press conferences, advertisements in African American newspapers, and the hiring of women as the most convincing sales staff for her products. One of those agents was Madame C. J. Walker.
Walker learned well from Malone; after working for her around 1905, Walker left to develop her own hair care line and complexion cream. The next year Walker moved to Denver, Colorado, and opened an office there; an eastern division opened the next year with an office in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By 1910 Walker had headquartered her operations in Indianapolis and constructed a manufacturing facility. Walker is often erroneously hailed as a pioneer in African American hair care products and straightening processes, though historical data indicates that Malone was indeed the true groundbreaker.
Still, Malone's
enterprise thrived well during the first decades of the twentieth century, and
by 1910 she had opened larger offices at 3100 Pine Street in St. Louis. In 1917
she opened the doors of Poro College, the first cosmetology school geared
toward training specialists for African American hair. It was a large, lavish facility that included well-equipped classrooms, an auditorium, an ice cream parlor and bakery, and a theater--as well as the manufacturing facilities for
Poro products. Office space housed several prominent local and national African
American organizations, and the college was soon a center of activity and
influence in St. Louis's African American community; it also provided a large
number of jobs. The college itself offered training courses for women
interested in joining the Poro System's franchised agent-operator network. To
Malone, deportment and appearance were as crucial to success as hair-care
knowledge, and such specifics were an integral part of the curriculum. There
were PORO agencies in every state in the Unites States, and in Alaska, Canada,
Nova Scotia, Haiti, Cuba, the Bahamas, Central and South America, Africa, and
the Philippines.
Malone married the husband from whom
she took her best-known name in 1921, but her union with Aaron Malone would
prove a disastrous one for the company. Malone's Poro System continued to
expand, and it was estimated that at one point in the 1920s her personal worth
had reached $14 million. Thousands of Poro agents were doing business
throughout the United States and the Caribbean. Malone moved out of the famed
St. Louis facilities in 1930 when she opened new headquarters in Chicago.
There, at 44th and South Parkway, sat what became known as the Poro Block.
During much of the 1920s,
however, the Malones had been involved in a debilitating power struggle that
was kept hidden from all but a few closest to the Poro System's executive
offices, in which her husband was ensconced as chief manager and president. That
position was terminated when the two finally divorced in 1927, but before that
Aaron Malone had worked long and hard to gain support from other prominent
African Americans in his bid to take over the company when he eventually filed
for divorce. In court, he claimed that the vast success of his wife's business
was due to the connections he had brought to their union, contacts he had made
prior to 1921, and thus asked to the court to award him half the company. Annie
Malone's own charitable nature ultimately saved her, however; she had become a
generous contributor to a number of organizations geared toward helping African
American women; such largesse helped
sway opinion
in her favor, and Poro was saved when she agreed to pay her husband a $200,000
settlement.
These interminable internal and
later public battles spelled the beginning of the end for Malone's Poro empire.
She sold her St. Louis property, and run-ins with the federal government over
her failure to pay excise taxes (levied on goods like hair care products that
are classified as luxury items); she was also negligent in
paying real estate taxes and by 1951 the government had seized control of the
company. Tragically, much of Malone's wealth had gone into more worthy causes
over the years. She reportedly supported a pair of students at every African
American land-grant college in the country; orphanages for African American
children regularly received donations of $5,000, and during the 1920s alone she
reportedly gave $60,000 to the St. Louis Colored Young Women's Christian
Association, the Tuskegee Institute, and Howard
University Medical School. Within her company Malone was equally magnanimous. Five-year
employees received diamond rings, and punctuality and
attendance were rewarded as well.
Malone belonged to numerous philanthropic groups
as well, further reflecting her dedication to improving the lives of African
Americans. The National Negro Business League, the Commission on Interracial
Cooperation, and the Colored Women's Federated Clubs of St. Louis all benefited
from Malone's energy and prominent name. The St. Louis Colored Orphans Home was
eventually named after her. On May 10, 1957, Malone died of a stroke in a
Chicago hospital. Sadly, her worth had dwindled to a mere $100,000 by the time
of her death. She was buried at the famous Burr Oaks cemetery in Chicago at the
age of 87.
The Annie Malone Historical Society (AMHS)is a non-profit
organization dedicated to giving proper
recognition to a pillar of history and to share the story of extraordinary
vision, dedication, commitment and success that was the life of Annie Turnbo
Malone. Go to www.anniemalonehistoricalsociety.org or join us on
Facebook for more information about her life and legacy. To see a short video about
Annie Malone on Youtube, copy the URL below in your browser- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVOOjnbJ-EU.
Bibliography
Contemporary Black
Biography, Volume 13, Gale Research, 1996.
Barbara Sicherman and
Carol Hurd Green, Notable American Women: The Modern Period, (Belknap Press, 1980)
Notable Black American
Women, Gale Research, 1992
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