Great Single Entrepreneurs

Mary Jane Smith -- home based beauty shop owner

Mary Jane Smith is the mother of Gladys Smith-Duran, MSW, the founder and director of The BOSPP. Mary Jane was a single entrepreneur; a home-based beauty shop owner, in the 1950's. She grew up as Mary Jane Palmer in a small town in Missouri called Macon. The 1950's, were an era when the US was not a land of opportunity to everyone, and many of its citizen were not even allowed to vote. During that time, because Mary Jane was an African American, the few employment opportunities available to her were usually; live-in maid jobs, janitor positions, and part-time cashier positions. In the 1950's, in Missouri, Jim Crow laws did not allow African American's be employed in many of the higher paying positions. In fact, Mary Jane's mother, Bertha Palmer, had been forced to scrub floors all of her life, even though she had a college degree. These types of jobs did not make enough to allow a person to live in their own home, so most people who held them lived in the home of their employers, or with relatives.

Mary Jane graduated from Lincoln High School in Moberly, Missouri, as valedictorian of her class when she was just 16 years of age. Still, she did not go onto college but worked as a janitor in Macon, Missouri, for a dentist named Dr. Edwin Keith. Her sister, Betty Jean Palmer graduated a year later. Even though she was so good at math, that she had known all of her times tables by the time she was just four years of age, Betty Jean worked as a part-time cashier. Mary Jane and Betty Jean worked and lived together at home with their parents and other siblings. They attended Macon's Bethel AME Church, where Mary Jane played the piano. About a year after graduation, Betty Jean decided to move to greener pastures, in Denver, Colorado, where Jim Crow laws were not enforced. In Denver, Betty Jean lived with their cousin, Leona Thomas. Betty Jean went on to marry Willie Alford, a successful bus driver. Together they had four daughters, one of which is now a physician. Soon after Betty Jean's departure, Mary Jane, and her cousin, Mary Virginia Morton, caught the train from Macon, to St. Joseph, Missouri, to enroll in Banks Beauty Academy.

After graduating from beauty school, Mary Jane was offered her first job to work as a shampoo girl, at a beauty shop in Columbia, Missouri. She caught the train there, and rented a room. She had only worked there only a short time when she was invited by Bill and Catherine Bradley, to open a African American beauty shop in Keokuk, Iowa. Mary Jane knew Catherine because she had grown up with her in Macon. Catherine had moved to Keokuk when she married Bill. Bill and Catherine were homeowners who worked at one of Keokuk's eateries, The Blessed Morton Cafe. Keokuk, did not have an African American beauty shop within 100 miles and African American women had to do their own hair, and order their beauty supplies through the mail. Mary accepted the Bradley 's invitation. Upon hearing the news, Mary Jane's father, Clarence Palmer, gave her a celebration gift, her first car.

So Mary Jane moved to Keokuk, Iowa with her little dog Jitterbug in her new car. For no charge, she lived with the Bradley's and their two children, Mary Lou and Benny until she had enough customers to afford to rent a place of her own. She ran her first home-based beauty shop from the the Bradley's home. So that she could afford to invest in the beauty equipment and supplies needed for her customers, Mary Jane also got a job working as a maid for the owners of Keokuk's Hoopiter's Flour Mill. She worked as a maid from early in the morning until about 2:30 pm. By 3pm, she would be back at the Bradley's and ready to take care of her beauty shop customers. She became a member of the AME Church in Keokuk, sang in the choir, and sang at funerals, since she was one of the few younger women who could get time off from work during the day when funerals were held.

As soon as her beauty shop was making enough for her to afford rent, Mary Jane moved from the Bradley's into a room for rent. The room belonged to Aunt Richie, a retired friend of one of her beauty shop customers, Deborah Smith. Aunt Richie was called Aunt Richie, even by people who were not even related to her. Deborah Smith was the mother of Mary Jane's future husband, even though she did not know it at the time. The rent was inexpensive, and there, Mary Jane ran her home-based beauty shop from her living area on the second floor. When the income from her beauty shop grew greater still, Mary Jane answered an ad in the paper for a room for rent. The rent was more expensive, but it was on the ground floor, where her customers did not have to climb the stairs. When Mary Jane moved there, her customers were mostly elderly during the weekdays, younger women in the evenings, and children on the weekends.

Mary Jane's Beauty Shop continued to prosper, and she moved into a duplex. By that time, most of her customers were citizens of Keokuk, but one was an elderly woman who was carpooling in from a small town 15 miles away. The duplex was rented to her by the Lawson's. They were the parents of Frank and Freda. Frank lived in the other side of the duplex. Mary Jane ran her beauty shop from a room, on the first floor, in the back of her duplex, and it was her only job. By then, her dreams had come true; she became on of the town's most successful businesswomen. She had hundreds of friends and acquaintances and her Christmas tree was crowded with presents each December; something that had never happened when she was a child. She was also able to afford a beautiful wardrobe including many top-of-the-line dresses and a mink stole. She also met her husband, Elmer E. Smith, Sr., her customer Deborah Smith's son.

At 29 years of age, Mary Jane closed her beauty shop and married Elmer in her hometown of Macon. The wedding had seven bridesmaids, seven bridegrooms, three flower girls, and three ring bearers, and was so splendid that it is still often spoken of in the town to this very day, when weddings are discussed. The bridesmaids dressers were a bouquet of pastels; pink, yellow, green, and lavender. Frank, her next door neighbor made the phonographic recording of her wedding. Mary Jane and Elmer honeymooned, in his home town, Clarksville, Texas. her parents could not have afforded such a spectacular wedding by themselves, but together, she and her parents did.

By 1965, Mary Jane and Elmer had two children, Gladys and Elmer Jr. By 1967, Elmer Sr. and Mary had bought their first home in Denver, Colorado, a brick house, with fruit trees, in a middle class neighborhood. Elmer was the sole breadwinner. Mary Jane stayed home and raise their children full-time. They had three more children, Donald, Ella, and Ruth Ann. When Ruth Ann went off to kindergarten, Mary Jane returned to work as at a beauty shop in Denver, as a shampoo girl. Now, she and her husband are still married, retired, and living in the same house where they raised their children. In home care is provided for them by their family, so that they have not been required to move into a nursing home.

Of being able to be cared at home, Mary Jane says she is happy, and, “I'm as free as a bird,” then she adds, “but, I have too many bosses, though (referring to the bossiness of her five children, who often try to treat her like a child when she prefers to be independent).” Of her experiences as a home based business owner she believes that owning her own business made her a more well-rounded individual, a better wife, and a better mother. While preparing for and running her business, Mary Jane learned many useful life lessons. She visited many places, experienced much, and met many different types of people. She could not have had such an interesting life in her small town of Macon. Her five children are well-rounded law abiding citizens, of which she is very proud. Four of her children, two sons and two daughters, attended college. One son graduated with his Bachelors. Gladys graduated with her Masters, and runs her own non-profit agency as her second job. The other daughter, who went to college, runs a home based business with her husband as their second jobs. Mary Jane believes that if she would have stayed in Macon, cleaning Dr. Keith's dentist office for the rest of her life, she would not have had so much wisdom to pass on to her children. Also, she adds, “I probably would have never gotten married because (even when I was in high school) I didn't date much in Macon; most everyone (who was dating age) in my town, was related to me.” So where there was not much opportunity, for Mary Jane, self-employment, created opportunities.

Miriam E. Benjamin -- second African American woman to receive a patent.

No one seems to know her marital status for sure, but Miriam E. Benjamin was probably single. According to her biography on blackinventors.com she was a school teacher, in Washington D.C., in the late 1800's. She was the second African American in U.S. history to receive a patent. Furniture store owner, Sarah H. Goode, was the first, when she received a patent for her folding cabinet bed, in 1885. Ms. Benjamin received a patent for her invention, the Gong and Signal Chair for Hotels, in 1888. Her chair, as she stated in her patent application would "reduce the expenses of hotels by decreasing the number of waiters and attendants, to add to the convenience and comfort of guests and to obviate the necessity of hand clapping or calling aloud to obtain the services of pages." So, she presented her invention as a device that would reduce overhead costs for hotel owners.

The system worked by pressing a small button on the back of a chair which would relay a signal to a waiting attendant. At the same time a light would illuminate on the chair allowing the attendant to see which guest was in need of assistance. The system was adopted and installed within the United States House of Representatives and was the predecessor of the methods used today on airplanes to signal stewardesses. It seems that African American female inventor/entrepreneurs have a proud heritage, as it has been 109 years since their first received an income from an invention.