Beauty culture was big business at the turn of the century, and just as the beauty industry liberated women like Helena Rubenstein, Harriet Hubbard Ayer, and Elizabeth Arden, among others, it also liberated black women. Madame C.J. Walker’s fame as the first black millionairess has overshadowed America’s other successful black beauty businesswoman, Annie Turnbo Malone. …
Tag: black business in the gilded age
Black Business in the Gilded Age: Afro-American Realty Company
Phillip A. Payton, Jr. (1867-1917) and his Afro-American Realty Company took advantage of the real estate “color line” in New York and helped to establish Harlem as a major cultural landmark in African-American history. Born the son of a tea merchant and barber in Westfield, Massachusetts, Payton moved to New York soon after graduating from …
Black Business in the Gilded Age: C.R. Patterson Automobile Company
By the turn of the century, America was home to over 1,000 automobile manufacturers, including Ford, Cadillac, and General Motors. What automobile history does not record is the presence of an automobile manufacturer owned and run by an African-American family in Ohio. Charles Richard Patterson was born enslaved in 1833, and escaped nearly thirty years …