?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
INSCRIBED BY ANNIE TURNBO-MALONE (BUSINESS.) TURNBO-MALONE, ANNIE M. POPE. "Poro" in Pictures. Copiuosly illustrated booklet, 44 pages. Oblong 8vo, original embossed pictorial wrappers; rear cover with signs of removal from an album, otherwise an exceptional copy. St. Louis, circa 1926
a rare brochure, made all the more rare by the inscription: "compliments of mrs. annie m. turnbo-malone to raymond pittman." Annie Minerva Turnbo (1869-1957) was born to poor farmers in Metropolis, Illinois. The tenth of eleven children, she attended school briefly but was forced to stop her education because of ill health. Around the 1890s Annie Turnbo developed several products that replaced the goose-fat, lye and other harsh chemicals commonly used to straighten black hair. Work on Poro College, the first American school of black cosmetology, began in 1917 and was completed in 1920. The business employed over 175 people with 175,000 agents world-wide for her products. Despite her wealth, Annie lived modestly, giving most of her fortune away. At the peak of her success, she is said to have supported two students in every Negro college in the country. She would probably have equaled or exceeded Madame Walker had it not been for a long and bitter legal battle with her husband. Madame C. J. Walker, who is generally credited with being the first black millionaire and pioneer in the hair-product business, actually worked for Annie Turnbo-Malone for a time in 1903.
