Poro: The Great Wonderful Annie Malone Story
A Summary
Logline: The inspiring story of Annie Malone, the founder of the 32 branch Poro Cosmetology School, is chronicled in this portrait of one of the nation’s first black female millionaires who was born the daughter of former slaves and turned her passion for hair care into a series of quality products, a novel educational and training system, and a lifetime of charitable giving despite the overwhelming challenges to women of all colors at the turn of the last century.
As important as her legacy remains, as inspiring as her story of triumph is, few people outside of St. Louis, the community she chose to build her empire within, know the name Annie Malone. And of those that do, many wonder why this woman of color has been overlooked by history or, at the very least, had her story marginalized to further enrich the legend of one of her apprentices, Madam C. J. Walker. Poro: The Great Wonderful Annie Malone Story aims to change all that by shining a deserved spotlight on one of the nation’s first black female millionaires in a portrait that corrects history as it showcases a powerful and inspiring success story, a tale of greatness deserved of its proper place in our nation’s heritage.
Annie Minerva Turnbo was born in Metropolis, Illinois, a town on the Kentucky border not far from Paducah, in 1869 to recently freed slaves. The tenth of eleven children, she was orphaned at an early age and went to live with her older sister in Peoria where she attended high school amid health challenges that would eventually sideline her formal education. Annie applied her studies in chemistry and her aunt’s teachings as an herbalist to her passion for hair care, and soon the pastime of hair styling she practiced with her sister became her obsession. Black hair care products of the day designed to straighten hair were grease based – bacon fat, butter or heavy oils laced with alcohol rich perfumes and often contained harmful irritants like lye which resulted in dry scalps and hair loss. Annie knew there had to be a better way, and she worked tirelessly to develop her own product line based on her philosophy that “clean scalps mean clean bodies.”
Bolstered with her new and improved hair straightening formula she called “The Great Wonderful Hair Grower” and a proven regimen of hair cleaning, Annie sold her products door-to-door and set her sights on St. Louis, home to a large black population and host for the upcoming World’s Fair of 1904. She moved there in 1902 and set up shop, instructing black women of the day in proper hair care through regular cleansing and the use of her product to achieve a better way to healthy, straight hair. An early client and student, Sara Davis, would take that knowledge with her to Colorado where she launched a competitive product line and, with the help of her husband’s advertising agency and her own gift for self-promotion, would reinvent herself as Madam C. J. Walker and eclipse her mentor, Annie, over the remaining fifteen years of Walker’s short and controversial life. To this day, showcased in the recent Netflix series Self Made, Walker’s similarly named “Wonderful Hair Grower” is remembered as THE definitive hair care formula for black women and was the inspiration for the Sephora product line “Madam C. J. Walker Beauty Culture”.
In 1914, Annie married Aaron Eugene Malone and in 1918, she established Poro College in St. Louis, a cosmetology school (the first of it’s kind in the nation). In addition to the instructional facility, the campus featured a 500 seat auditorium, the manufacturing facility, dorms, a gymnasium, meeting rooms and a chapel, serving the business and social needs of the black community. The school and its related franchises quickly grew, expanding its reach to South America, Africa and the Phillipines where it offered employment to thousands of women. By the early 1920s, Annie Malone was a multi-millionaire who gave generously to the local YMCA and Washington based Howard University. She served as the President of the St. Louis Colored Orphans Home for over two decades and was its greatest benefactor. Annie’s messy divorce from her husband in 1927 forced Poro College into receivership but she was able to buy out his interest for $200,000 and moved the business to Chicago where she remained active in its operation until her death in 1957.
In 1938, the world came to know the town of Metropolis, Illinois as the home of young Clark Kent who would grow to fame as comic book hero Superman. In Poro: The Great Wonderful Annie Malone Story, we will show them another superhero from that tiny hamlet…Annie Turnbo Malone.