[5][6] In the first three decades of the 20th century, she founded and developed a large and prominent commercial and educational enterprise centered on cosmetics for African-American women.

Annie Turnbo was born on a farm near Metropolis in Massac County, Illinois,[8] the tenth of eleven children.

[9] Orphaned at a young age, she attended a public school in Metropolis, before moving in 1896 to live with her older sister Ada Moody in Peoria.

[11] At the time, many women used goose fat, heavy oils, soap, or bacon grease to straighten their curls, which damaged both scalp and hair.

[8] She also launched a wide advertising campaign in the black press, held news conferences, toured many southern states, and recruited many women whom she trained to sell her products.

This development was one of the reasons which led then Turnbo to copyright her products under the name "Poro" because of what she called fraudulent imitations and to discourage counterfeit versions.

[1] The building included a manufacturing plant, a retail store where Poro products were sold, business offices, a 500-seat auditorium, dining and meeting rooms, a roof garden, dormitory, gymnasium, bakery, and chapel.

Through its school and franchise businesses, the college created jobs for almost 75,000 women in North and South America, Africa and the Philippines.

Having served as president of the company, he demanded half of the business' value, based on his claim that his contributions had been integral to its success.

[12] After the divorce, Turnbo moved most of her business to Chicago's South Parkway (now Martin Luther King Jr. Drive), where she bought an entire city block.

While extremely wealthy, Malone lived modestly, giving thousands of dollars to the local black YMCA[15][24] and the Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C.[25] She became a benefactor of the St. Louis Colored Orphans Home, where she served as president on the board of directors from 1919 to 1943.

Upgraded and expanded, the facility was renamed in the entrepreneur's honor as the Annie Malone Children and Family Service Center.