Born: 1877 (Metropolis, Illinois)
Died: 1957
Biography:
Annie Minerva Turnbo Malone (August 9, 1877 – May 10, 1957) was an American businesswoman, inventor, and philanthropist. She is considered to be one of the first African American women to become a millionaire. In the first three decades of the 20th century, she founded and developed a large and prominent commercial and educational enterprise centered on cosmetics for African-American women.
Annie Minerva Turnbo was born in Metropolis, Illinois, on August 9, 1877, the daughter of Robert and Isabella Turnbo, who had formerly been enslaved. When her father went off to fight for the Union with the 1st Kentucky Cavalry in the Civil War, Isabella took the couple’s children and escaped from Kentucky, a neutral border state that maintained slavery. After traveling down the Ohio River, she found refuge in Metropolis, Illinois.
Annie Turnbo was born on a farm near Metropolis in Massac County, Illinois., the tenth of eleven children. Orphaned at a young age, she attended a public school in Metropolis, before moving in 1896 to live with her older sister Ada Moody in Peoria. There Turnbo attended high school, taking a particular interest in chemistry. However, due to frequent illness, she was forced to withdraw from classes.
While out of school, Turnbo grew fascinated with hair and hair care that she often practiced hairdressing with her sister. With expertise in both chemistry and hair care, Turnbo began to develop her own hair-care products. At the time, many women used goose fat, heavy oils, soap, or bacon grease to straighten their curls, which damaged both scalp and hair.
By the beginning of the 1900s, Turnbo moved with her older siblings to Lovejoy, now known as Brooklyn, Illinois. While experimenting with hair and different hair-care products, she developed and manufactured her own line of non-damaging hair straighteners, special oils, and hair-stimulant products for African-American women. She named her new product Wonderful Hair Grower. To promote her new product, Turnbo sold the Wonderful Hair Grower in bottles door-to-door. Her products and sales began to revolutionize hair-care methods for all African Americans.
In 1902, Turnbo moved to a thriving St. Louis, where she and three employees sold her hair-care products door-to-door. As part of her marketing, she gave away free treatments to attract more customers. Due to the high demand for her product in St. Louis, Turnbo opened her first shop in 1902 at 2223 Market Street. She also launched a wide advertising campaign in the black press, held news conferences, toured many southern states, and recruited many women whom she trained to sell her products. One of her selling agents, Sarah Breedlove Davis, later known as Madam C. J. Walker, operated first in St. Louis and later in Denver, Colorado until…
Awards:
– Unfortunately, there is no information available on any official awards or recognitions received by Annie Turnbo Malone.