Maude Mayberg

Maude Mayberg (born c. 1852), also known as Madame Yale, was a beauty products and patent medicine entrepreneur and saleswoman.

Career Mayberg said that around 1890 at age 38, she had found an elixir she called Fruitcura which had transformed her from illness to health after physicians had given up helping her. Stories of women who weren't helped by physicians were central to her sales pitch.

At the time, the wearing of cosmetics was looked upon as a "questionable moral choice," and Yale claimed her concoctions would "transform women from the inside out, rather than helping them hide their imperfections by wearing makeup. The Science of Health and Beauty (1890s) How to cultivate the complexion: a practical treatise on the care of the skin (1890) The government seized inventory and issued a report that Fruitcura contained 16.66% alcohol.

Legacy In 1904 the Boston Evening Transcript called her a "famous expert on beauty culture. Smithsonian in 2020 called her a "true pioneer" in what would later be termed the "wellness space." Emmeline Clein wrote in Smithsonian that she "dropped into obscurity" after two decades of fame and may have resumed using Mayberg.