Background
Ferguson was born in Salisbury, Maryland to a Methodist minister, Joseph E. A. Johns (b 1868).
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Ruth Elizabeth Booker Johns Ferguson
Edit ProfileCareer
Ferguson was a well known cosmetology expert and a successful Black business owner in mid-twentieth century Philadelphia. As Tiffany M. Gill argues in Beauty Shop Politics: African American Women"s Activism in the Beauty Industry, the NBCL was an incubator for Black women"s leadership during the Jim Crow era. Ferguson also belonged to Theta Nu Sigma, which Cordelia Green Johnson, a wealthy Chicago real estate owner and president of the of NBCL, started in 1946.
Ferguson served as Theta Nu Sigma"s president for a number of years.
In this sense, Ferguson could be said to follow in the footsteps of Madame C.J.Walker. The school, located at 525 South. Broad Street, operated for 35 years.
Ferguson"s papers are held by the Pennsylvania Historical Society.
Membership
Ferguson was a member of the National Beauty Culturists’ League (NBCL), organized in 1919 in Philadelphia. Members of the sorority held bachelor"s degrees granted by the National Institute of Cosmetology.
