Annie Turnbo Malone: 1869–1957

Annie Turnbo Malone, the daughter of a Kentucky refugee slave and one of 10 or 11 children, was born on a farm in Massac County and attended school in Metropolis. She is acknowledged as the true founder of African-American cosmetology and the first female African-American millionaire. After moving to St. Louis in the early 1900s, she developed and sold hair products for African-American women. By the time of the Great Depression, she was a multi-millionaire and philanthropist. Committed to community development, she established Pore College in St. Louis, which offered cosmetology training and created 75,000 jobs for its graduates, giving them self-respect and economic independence during the Depression Era. She is remembered in St. Louis through the community work of the Annie Malone Children and Family Service Center, a historical society established in her honor, and a parade each May. She is also depicted in the 2019 documentary No Lye, an American Beauty Story, about the rise and decline of the ethnic beauty industry. While she left Metropolis to achieve great things, her older sibling John Turnbo stayed there and became a turn-of-the-20th-century entrepreneur. In 1898, he became the first African-American alderman elected in the city of Metropolis.

Metropolis, Illinois · United States