We made it to Friyay! We have a spunky Arkansas woman who made history in the Arkansas Supreme Court.
Back in 1921, an 18-year-old girl from Knobel named Pearl Pugsley got into an all-out battle with her school over makeup, and the whole thing eventually became known across the country as the “lipstick case.” Funny thing is, she wasn’t even wearing lipstick.
The school board had decided girls couldn’t wear transparent stockings, low-necked dresses or any kind of “face paint or cosmetics.” Pearl showed up with a little talcum powder on her face, reportedly because her skin was chapped. They told her to wash it off. She refused, came back with powder on her face again, and they refused to let her attend school.
Pearl apparently wasn’t the type to just go home and forget about it. Her family hired a lawyer, and the fight went all the way to the Arkansas Supreme Court. She lost in 1923, although one justice basically thought keeping an 18-year-old girl out of school over face powder was ridiculous.
The newspapers had already turned the whole thing into the “lipstick case,” it made national news, and after all that fuss, the school board eventually dropped the cosmetics rule anyway.
Imagine going all the way to the Arkansas Supreme Court over a little face powder. Pearl may have lost the case, but she sure made her point. The case name is Pugsley v. Sellmeyer.
Arkansas women have apparently been stubborn for a very long time.