Miss Jane Addams, founder and head of Hull-House in Chicago, and nationally known leader among women, believes in [nationwide] protection for women patrons of beauty shops and has given her endorsement to the cosmetic therapy bill which demands licensing of all beauty operators.
"I am heartily in favor of this movement as a public health measure," said Miss Addams at Hull House. "Millions of women, old and young, visit beauty shops every day. There is need of special legislation for their protection. Cosmeticians authorized to give beauty treatments should have state licenses as evidence that they have attended a school for sufficient length of time to insure expertness and the surgical cleanliness which can come only through training. This protection is given to men by barber shop laws in virtually every state.
"Every woman who puts herself into the hands of a beauty operator for treatment should have assurance that the operator is well qualified to give a safe and scientific treatment. Certainly an untrained operator is not only a detriment to the business, hurting public confidence, but is a public menace, and this is what it is necessary to have corrected and regulated by law.
"The state should set a minimum requirement of school training in a properly qualified and state approved cosmeticians' training school, before an operator should be licensed. The state must supervise beauty shops and see that a proper standard of sanitation and equipment is maintained. Members of the American Cosmeticians' Society maintain this standard already and know that it can be done and that nothing less should be tolerated."
Dr. Nellie Buchanan Cooper, of Baton Rouge, La., president of the [page 2] American Cosmeticians' Society, was the originator of the cosmetic therapy movement, and is responsible for introducing the first beauty culture bill. She blazed the trail in her own state, Louisiana, and worked zealously for the passage of the bill in that state, which was the model for similar laws that later were passed in other states. She was appointed director of the Cosmetic Therapy Board of Louisiana by Governor John M. Parker, and for years took a special interest in personally examining the applicants for state licenses as cosmeticians, and in carefully inspecting the beauty shops of that state to see if the required sanitary standards were maintained to the letter.
Dr. Cooper is at present making a 10,000 mile tour of the United States, preaching her gospel for [nationwide] health protection and sanitation in beauty shops. As a result of her efforts, Missouri, Arkansas, Oregon, Utah, New Mexico, Minnesota and Wisconsin have fallen into line with Louisiana and passed beauty shop laws. A bill is now pending before the Illinois legislature.
Cosmetics, in their manufacturing, wholesale and retail phases, are a billion dollar business in the United States. There are only eleven other billion dollar businesses in this country. Women in the United States spent $750,000,000 last year for cosmetics of all kinds, according to U.S. Census figures.
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