POPE, Jessie, African-American, beautician. The Inventor of a thermostatically controlled curling iron for hairdressing. Eleanor Roosevelt gave her help and support, which enabled patent applications to be filed in 1946. Many years later, in 1958, Jessie managed to start a company to manufacture them (Curling Inc). Because of the commercial significance the patents were filed in Canada and the USA. This was one of the first applications of thermostats, the process took less than 15 minutes. From 1946-58, Jessie had struggled making them by hand and never fulfilled all the orders, after 1958 with financial backing her new company started mass production of this excellent product.