15 Facts About Marjorie Joyner

Marjorie Joyner was an American businesswoman, hair care entrepreneur, philanthropist, educator, and activist.

Marjorie Joyner was the granddaughter of a slave and a white slave-owner.

Marjorie Joyner's family relocated to Dayton, Ohio in 1904 and her parents divorced three years later.

In 1912, aged 16, Marjorie Joyner relocated to Chicago, Illinois to live with her mother.

In 1973, at the age of 77, Marjorie Joyner was awarded a bachelor's degree in psychology from Bethune-Cookman College.

Shortly after graduating from beauty school, Marjorie Joyner opened her salon.

In 1920, Marjorie Joyner oversaw 200 of Madam Walker's beauty schools as the national adviser.

Marjorie Joyner taught some 15,000 stylists and served as an instructor to coaching Walker's sales representatives door-to-door.

Marjorie Joyner helped write the first cosmetology laws for the state of Illinois in the early 1940s.

In 1919, Marjorie Joyner started looking for an easier way for women to curl their hair, taking her inspiration from a pot roast cooking with paper pins to quicken preparation time.

Marjorie Joyner experimented initially with these paper rods and soon designed a table that could be used to curl or straighten hair by wrapping hair.

That was when Marjorie Joyner improved it with the simple idea of having a scalp protector while the lady is curling her hair.

Marjorie Joyner's design was an alternative version of Karl Nessler's groundbreaking invention, invented in England during the late 19th century and patented in London in 1909 and again in the United States in 1925.

Marjorie Joyner's design was popular in salons with both African American and white women.

Marjorie Joyner died on December 27,1994, of heart failure at her home in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, aged 98.