“God Created Eve Beautiful”: The Christian Basis for Entrepreneurship among Black Beauty Culturists

The careers of African-American beauty entrepreneurs in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, demonstrate how beauty culturists utilized themes of Christian religiosity to market their products, sell their goods, and justify their place in the business world. Many African-American entrepreneurs in beauty culture skillfully used conceptions of traditional Christian womanhood to build their business ventures and to challenge historical constraints of race and gender. As historian Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham has demonstrated, during the twentieth century black churches served as a venue through which African-American women could wield a modicum of social and political power. This paper will show the ways in which black women also sought to fulfill their economic needs through black churches and by their associations with Christian women across the nation. In 1955 beauty culturist Eunice Wolfe instructed the readers of Beauty Trade: The Magazine for Negro Beauticians that “Christian women should be the leaders of beauty, fashion, and charm” because “God created Eve beautiful.” The efforts of beauty entrepreneurs such as Eunice Wolfe demonstrate the often intricate methods by which entrepreneurs have utilized cultural resources to build their financial resources. By incorporating a religious conviction into her message of entrepreneurship, Wolfe represents a cadre of black beauty culturists who established their businesses, found clientele, and drew profits by combining their interests in business, beauty, and the Bible. Christianity has long shaped the American cultural landscape and the development of U. S. history. Much scholarly attention has thus been paid to the ways in which various groups of Americans have used Christian religious thought as a justification to fight wars, engage in movements for social justice, and effect political change. This paper will illuminate another important, yet understudied, use of Christian religious culture in mid-twentieth century America –as a mechanism to promote for-profit business enterprise.