Marjorie Stewart Joyner invented the Permanent Wave Machine thus making cosmetology history. Joyner helped write the first cosmetology laws for Illinois and founded the United Beauty School Owners and Teachers Association with Mary Bethune McLeod in 1945. Joyner born on October 24, 1896, in Monterey, Virginia. She was the granddaughter of an enslaved Black woman and white slave owner. Joyner grew up poor and moved to Chicago in 1912 at age sixteen where she enrolled in A.B. Molar Beauty School.  She graduated in 1916, becoming the first African American to do so from that institution.

Not long after graduating from beauty school, Marjorie married Robert E. Joyner, and the couple had two daughters.

Once she graduated, Joyner opened a salon in Chicago. Joyner met Madam C.J. Walker, who owned a cosmetic empire.  Joyner went to work for Walker and became the national adviser to Walker’s company, overseeing 200 beauty schools.

In 1928, Joyner patented her famous invention, the Permanent Wave Machine. This was a new method to curl hair that lasted for days. The invention was inspired by the pins Joyner used when making pot roast that heated the meat from the inside. The invention consisted of 16 rods connected to an electric cord inside of a drying hood. A client would sit in the hood for a certain period, to set in the curls.s Joyner also invented a scalp protector to make the process less painful. Despite the popularity of her invention among black and white women, Joyner never saw any profit from the invention as the rights were owned by Madam C.J. Walker’s company.

Over her 50-year career, Joyner taught around 15,000 stylists. In 1973, she earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Florida at the age of 77. Joyner passed away of heart failure in her Chicago home on December 7, 1994, at age 98.

Sources: Weber, E. (2018, March 09). Marjorie Stewart Joyner (1896-1994). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/joyner-marjorie-stewart-1896-1994/

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