1910s Native American African American Beauty Product Box

Item Details

Strong photo graphic advertises   East India Brown Powder // For Dark & Light Skinned Brown People // Prepared by the East India Toilet Goods MFG Co. // S.D. Lyons Oklahoma City.

 

Madam C.J. Walker product containers from the same time period are very scarce, but actually seem easier to find compared to this small competitor. No others from S.D. Lyons show on market, in auction records or housed in archives. Only a variant of this portrait is seen in period newspaper advertisements.

 

In 1909 Sydney Daniel Lyons moved to Oklahoma City from Texas, first opening a grocery in the Black business district east of downtown & then East India toiletries in 1918. Together w/ oil field investments, he amassed a small real estate empire in OKC, Guthrie & Texas.   Lyons himself is reported as African American & sometimes from the Choctaw Nation. Perhaps this is why his products stand alone as being marketed to Dark & Light Brown Skinned People without exclusion.

 

3” W” x 1 3/8” H.

 

Minor wear from use. Original tissue powder bag is still affixed inside.