Draft:Christina Jenkins

= Christina M. Jenkins =

Christina Mae Jenkins (born Christina Mae Thomas, December 25, 1920) is an African American inventor and cosmetologist. She is best known for inventing the sew-in hair-weaving method.

Early Life and Education
Christina Mae Jenkins was born on Christmas day, 25 December 1920, in Zillplatt, Louisiana. Unfortunately, little else is known about her early childhood. She attended Leland College, near Baton Rouge, in Louisiana, graduated in 1943, and obtained her bachelor's degree in science. The very same year, Jenkins got married to a well-known jazz pianist named Herman 'Duke' Jenkins changed her maiden name, Thomas, to Jenkins and had a daughter whom she named Sheila Jenkins-Cochran.

Work
Jenkins then pops up at a wig manufacturing factory in Chicago. While working in the factory, Jenkins devised a plan to have wigs sit more securely on top of a person's head; hair extensions were more prone to slide off, and it was bulky and not good-looking. She began the process by examining the different methods of sewing hair into a person's natural hair. Through Jenkins's inventive process, her idea involved three cords and a device called a weaving frame. The weaving frame was created as a natural weft to attach commercial hair and transform it.

Jenkins then moves to Malvern, Ohio, to further her study of how sewing in commercial hair with a person's natural hair added length and body. She began getting this technique patented on May 4, 1951; she successfully created the "Hair-Weeve." She was able to get her technique patented in 1952 successfully. She described the method as "interweaving strands of live hair and strands of commercial hair, with cord-like material to permanently join the strands to it."

Once Jenkins' patent was accepted, she started teaching her techniques to other cosmologists and stylists and even traveled across Europe to spread her hair-weaving method. She settled in Cleveland, Ohio, and there, she opened her own hair salon called "Christina's HairWeeve Penthouse Salon," which she ran until 1993.

Death
Jenkins died at the age of 82 in 2003. When she passed, the late Ohio U.S. Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones commented on her work and called her "a pioneer in the field of cosmetology" and then said her invention of the hair weave a "revolutionary contribution" that has "helped to boost the self-esteem of men and women across the world." By creating a versatile hair styling option, she gave many people, including future generations, the ability to express themselves while applying a protective hairstyle.