Patent Analysis: Marjorie S. Joyner’s Permanent Wave Machine

This activity can be used during a unit on inventions and innovations or to build document analysis skills in younger students. For grades grades 4-8. Approximate time needed is 15 minutes.

Ask students to look at the partially obscured patent drawing. Without providing any context, model document analysis:

• Quickly scan this document. What do you notice first?
• Describe the document and the invention it depicts as if you were explaining it to someone who can’t see it.
• Based on what you can see, what do you think is the purpose of this invention? List evidence from the document to explain your opinion.

After some discussion, reveal that this is a patent drawing for a popular invention. If students are unaware of the definition of a patent, provide a brief definition that a patent gives an inventor a temporary monopoly on his or her invention. Explain how in the United States, the Constitution gave Congress the power to “To promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries” in Article I, Section 8.

Ask students to offer educated guesses as to the specific invention. If no one guesses Marjorie Joyner’s Permanent Wave Machine (or a general hair/beauty device), provide the following clues from her description of the invention:

• “The object of the invention is the construction of a simple and efficient machine [for] the hair of both white and colored people.”
• “Another object of the invention is the construction of a machine that embodies an efficient dome which carries the [mechanisms used in the hair] process.”
• “A still further object of the invention is the construction of a simple and efficient scalp protector [for the process].”

Following a brief discussion and potential guesses, provide the following context for the invention:

After studying and working in the beauty culture industry for some time, Marjorie Joyner met and quickly joined Madam C.J. Walker’s Walker Manufacturing Company, the largest African American-owned company in the United States. Marjorie Joyner eventually served as national adviser for the beauty company that employed thousands of African American women across the country selling hair-care products.

 

While teaching students at the Walker Beauty School in Chicago and traveling as an adviser, Marjorie Joyner had the idea to create a new device. One evening as she was making a pot roast, Joyner thought there must be a way that allowed multiple rods to be applied to the hair at once, greatly reducing the time needed to create curls and waves for women’s hair.

 

After tinkering and experimenting with different setups—using her pot roast rods—Joyner came up with her one-of-a-kind permanent wave machine. Not realizing she should patent her unique device, Joyner used it for a few years before filing for one. She submitted a petition and drawings on May 16, 1928, and became one of the first African-American women to receive a patent.

After sharing the historical context, ask students to discuss the impact of this invention in American history, in African-American history, and today.