{"id":1814,"date":"2020-05-29T12:00:55","date_gmt":"2020-05-29T17:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/?p=1814"},"modified":"2023-08-07T11:33:36","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T16:33:36","slug":"pauline-humphrey-the-african-american-beauty-business-in-iowa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/2020\/05\/29\/pauline-humphrey-the-african-american-beauty-business-in-iowa\/","title":{"rendered":"Pauline Humphrey & African American Beauty Culture in Iowa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This post by IWA Graduate Research Assistant Heather Cooper is the fifth installment in our series highlighting African American history in the Iowa Women\u2019s Archives collections. The series ran weekly during Black History Month, and will continue monthly for the remainder of 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past few months, social media has been filled with people bemoaning the temporary loss of their favorite salon or barbershop and the need to improvise at home for their hair care needs. More broadly, the crisis over Covid-19 has been a reminder of how important local businesses and services are in our daily lives and how much they contribute to our sense of community. This is a good moment to remember and celebrate the history of African American entrepreneurship in Iowa by highlighting the career of Pauline Robinson Brown Humphrey, who might fairly be called the Madame C. J. Walker of Iowa.  A life-long resident of Des Moines, Pauline Humphrey opened the first beauty shop for African Americans in Iowa in 1935 and went on to establish the Crescent School of Beauty Culture in 1939. For many years these enterprises operated in the Center Street neighborhood, a thriving black business district in Des Moines.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Group portrait, including Pauline B. Humphrey, front row center wearing tied shoes, with hands in pockets, outside Crescent School of Beauty Culture with Dormitory, [1940s], African American Museum of Iowa<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

An oral history with Pauline Humphrey\u2019s daughter Barbara James in the Iowa Women\u2019s Archives recalls the strong example she set for her daughter as a \u201ccareer woman.\u201d The interview was conducted as part of the Iowa Women\u2019s Archives\u2019 African American Women in Iowa Project in the 1990s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Denied entrance to cosmetology programs in Iowa on account of her race, Pauline Humphrey traveled to Chicago with her young daughter in order to attend Madame C. J. Walker\u2019s cosmetology school in 1934. There, she worked long hours to study both theory and practice and master how to care for the beauty needs of African American women. When the family returned to Des Moines in 1936, Humphrey passed the State Board of Examination to become a licensed cosmetologist and opened her first beauty shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Humphrey wasn\u2019t satisfied to simply provide services; she wanted to help create opportunities for others to become independent and self-sufficient and she saw a need for a beauty school in Iowa that would accept African American students. Humphrey commuted to Fort Dodge in order to gain certification and become licensed to teach and, in 1939, she opened the Crescent School of Beauty Culture in Des Moines. The school\u2019s motto was \u201cAim High and Hold Your Aim.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cCosmetology students in Crescent Beauty School Classroom, 1950s,\u201d African American Museum of Iowa<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Around 30 students enrolled at Crescent each semester and trained in all the typical procedures found in African American beauty parlors at the time: \u201cmarceling, straightening, bleaching and tinting, permanents, pressing and styling, facials, manicures and pedicures, and cutting and conditioning.\u201d Students learned by doing, offering discounted services for men and women at the beauty shop, as well as making monthly visits to local hospitals where they offered beauty care to patients free of charge. Humphrey sought to increase the availability of black beauty services in Iowa by recruiting students from underserved areas and then sending graduates back home to provide for their own communities. Reflecting on her grandmother\u2019s life work, Julie James wrote that Pauline Humphrey \u201cnot only educated students, but did untold service to her community.\u201d  Furthermore, the Crescent Beauty School \u201cwas a stepping stone for many men and women to gain economic independence\u201d as cosmetologists, stylists, and cosmetology instructors. Humphrey was an advocate for her students, her graduates, and the profession. She went on to lease a chain of beauty shops in the state and start her own line of hair and beauty products for African Americans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a female business owner and a woman of color, Humphrey faced many challenges owning and operating her own business. She couldn\u2019t get a small business loan; many people weren\u2019t willing to rent business property to African Americans; and suppliers weren\u2019t always keen on working with a female business owner.  Humphrey was also fighting to claim a place in a beauty industry dominated by whites and white standards of beauty. Recalling her mother\u2019s career, Barbara James said, \u201cIt was hard for a woman being in that position. . . She fought the racial fights and also the gender fights.\u201d Humphrey built a life around creating opportunities for her daughter to pursue her education through graduate school without financial hindrance and for other men and women to become independent professionals. Citing her mother as the greatest influence in her life, James recalled, \u201c. . .the biggest thing she wanted to do with me was to make sure that I was an independent woman, who could take care of myself, who was educated, and who was able to make a life for myself.\u201d  Her mother\u2019s image and her accomplishments provided, for James, the clearest example of how to approach one\u2019s life \u2013 \u201cEnjoy it, and savor it, and push yourself to make things better for other people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pauline Humphrey and the Crescent Beauty School are featured in the African American Museum of Iowa\u2019s current temporary exhibit, \u201cUntangling the Roots: The Culture of Black Hair”: https:\/\/blackiowa.org\/untanglingtheroots\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Material on Pauline Humphrey can be found in the Iowa Women\u2019s Archives collection Giving Voice to their Memories: Oral Histories of African American Women in Iowa. This collection includes an oral history interview with Humphrey\u2019s daughter, Barbara James; a brief remembrance written by Humphrey\u2019s granddaughter, Julie James; and a copy of the article \u201cIowa Women of Achievement\u201d published in the Iowa State Historical Society\u2019s The Goldfinch: Iowa History for Young People <\/em>(Winter 1993). Useful information on Crescent Beauty School and other African American businesses in Iowa was also found in Jack Lufkin\u2019s chapter, \u201c\u2018Higher Expectations for Ourselves\u2019: African-Americans in Iowa\u2019s Business World,\u201d in Outside In: African-American History in Iowa, 1838-2000, <\/em>ed. Bill Silag et al. (Iowa City: State Historical Society of Iowa, 2001). The photographs are shared by permission of the African American Museum of Iowa, which holds the Humphrey Family papers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post by IWA Graduate Research Assistant Heather Cooper is the fifth installment in our series highlighting African American history in the Iowa Women\u2019s Archives collections. The series ran weekly during Black History Month, and will continue monthly for the remainder of 2020. Over the past few months, social media has been filled with peopleContinue reading “Pauline Humphrey & African American Beauty Culture in Iowa”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":274,"featured_media":1819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[159,5,1],"tags":[188,204,164,206,207,141,205],"syndication":[20,61],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1814"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/274"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1814"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2257,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1814\/revisions\/2257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1814"},{"taxonomy":"syndication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/syndication?post=1814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}