Did Madame C.J. Walker invent the pressing comb?
Madame Walker did not invent the pressing comb. The pressing comb had been around for years prior to Madame Walker’s entrance onto the hair care scene. Madame Walker did purchase a patent for a specific type of pressing comb, but the trend of Black women wanting to straighten their hair had existed long before Madame Walker. Madame C.J. Walker had started –per her own words- a “HAIR GROWING business”, a business that she had cultivated into an entire system and methodology, which she had named “Beauty Culture”. In fact in an interview granted to the Indianapolis Recorder wherein she announced the introduction of five new toilet articles to her line of beauty products, Madame empathically stated the following: “Right here let me correct the erroneous impression held by some that I claim to straighten the hair. I deplore such impression because I have always held myself out as a hair culturist. I grow hair…I want the great masses of my people to take a greater pride in their personal app
