Christiana Carteaux Bannister T-Shirt

Christiana Carteaux Bannister (1819–1902) was a business entrepreneur, hairdresser, and abolitionist in New England. She was known professionally as Madame Carteaux. Christiana Carteaux Bannister was born Christiana Babcock in 1819 in North Kingston, Rhode Island. She was born to African American and Narragansett Indian parents. She was a descendant of enslaved Africans who worked the plantations of South County, Rhode Island, during the eighteenth century. As a young woman, she moved to Boston where she worked as a wigmaker and hairdresser. In Boston, the Bannisters lived and worked with Lewis Hayden and participated in the Boston Underground Railroad. The Bannister hair salons became popular meeting places for African American an...