Rose Morgan

Rose Meta Morgan (born August 9, 1912; died 2008) was the owner and operator of the largest beauty parlor for African American women. She was also among the founders of New York’s only black-owned commercial banks, the Freedom National Bank.[1]

Rose Morgan
Born
Rose Meta Morgan

August 9, 1912
Mississippi, U.S.
Died2008
NationalityAmerican
Spouse(s)
​
​
(m. 1955; ann. 1957)​

Early life

Morgan was one of nine children, the daughter of Chaptle Morgan, a former sharecropper turned businessman, and Winnie Robinson, a homemaker. She was born in Mississippi and was raised in Chicago.[2]

Career

She attended the Morris School of Beauty. After she styled Ethel Waters’s hair in 1938, the performer invited her to New York City. She rented a booth in Sugar Hill salons and six month’s later opened her salon, Rose Meta’s House of Beauty, in an old mansion.[2]

By 1946, the salon had 29 employees including stylists, masseurs, and nurses. In 1955, the facility relocated and reopened under a new name, Rose Morgan’s House of Beauty, with  additional departments including dressmaking and charm school spread over five floors.[3] A wig salon was added in 1960.[4] A 1946 Ebony magazine article named it the “biggest negro beauty parlor in the world.”[5]

Throughout the 1960s until her retirement in the 1970s, Morgan wrote a column for the New Pittsburgh Courier.[3] Over her career, Morgan trained 3,000 hairdressers in her beauty institutions.[6]

She founded Freedom National Bank, the only commercial bank for African Americans in New York.[7]

Personal life

She married heavyweight boxer Joe Louis in 1955. The marriage was annulled two years later.[8]

Legacy

Documentary

Rose Morgan is featured in Bayer Mack's 2019 documentary, No Lye: An American Beauty Story, that chronicles the rise and decline of the black-owned ethnic beauty industry.[9]

References
  1. "Rose Morgan's Biography". The HistoryMakers. Retrieved 2020-03-25.
  2. "Overlooked No More: Rose Morgan, a Pioneer in Hairdressing and Harlem". The New York Times. 2019-04-10. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-03-25.
  3. Smith, Jessie (2017-11-27). Encyclopedia of African American Business: Updated and Revised Edition, 2nd Edition [2 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-4408-5028-8.
  4. Walker, Susannah (2007-02-23). Style and Status: Selling Beauty to African American Women, 1920-1975. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-7219-4.
  5. Bailey, Diane Carol; Costa, Diane Da (2013-07-11). Milady Standard Natural Hair Care & Braiding. Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-1-285-96131-6.
  6. Carpenter, Julia. "A Woman to Know: Rose Morgan". awomantoknow.substack.com. Retrieved 2020-03-25.
  7. "Notable companies founded by Black entrepreneurs". Stacker. Retrieved 2020-03-25.
  8. "Beauty mogul Rose Morgan". amsterdamnews.com. Retrieved 2020-03-25.
  9. "EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT! 'NO LYE: AN AMERICAN BEAUTY STORY' GIVES EXCELLENT HISTORY LESSON". EURweb.com. 2019-12-03. Retrieved 2019-12-13.
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