Marjorie Stewart Joyner
Marjorie Stewart Joyner was born in Virginia in 1896. She was the grand daughter of slaves. Encouraged by her mother in law, young Marjorie Joyner enrolled in one of Madame C.J. Walker's Colleges of Hair Culture. Working later with Madame Walker both as a hair dresser and an agent developing a network of Walker beauty stores and schools Marjorie had to deal with the impermanence of women's hair styles. Hair-do's done in the mornings would, according to Joyner, look like "accidents about to happen" by evening. She set to work inventing a machine that would ensure lasting curls. Joyner called it the permanent-wave machine. Her prototype machine used pot roast rods--rods cooks used to hasten the cooking of meat. Joyner hooked sixteen pot roast rods to an old fashion hood hair dryer and joined them altogether through an electrical cord. Electricity drawn through the cord would heat the rods. She later improved upon her permanent-wave machine by adding a scalp protector. She received a patent for her machine in 1928. Marjorie Joyner died in 1994 at the age of 98.
The Permanent Wave Machine
Athena Greek Goddess of Mechanical Skills
References:
African-American Inventors by Fred M.B. Amram et al (Capstone Biographies, 1996).Women Invent: Two Centuries of Discoveries That Have Shaped Our World by Susan Casey (Chicago Review Press, 1997) p. 108, pp. 109-110.
Black Stars:African American Scientists and Inventors by Otha Richard Sullivan (John Wiley, 2002) pp. 40-43.
Patently Female by Ethlie Ann Vare and Greg Ptacek (John Wiley, 2002) pp. 147-149.
Web Sites:
Marjorie Stewart Joyner at Her Machine
Marjorie Stewart Joyner
Marjorie Joyner:Patent Holder
Marjorie Stewart Joyner
OTHER INNOVATIONS AND INVENTIONS
