Madam C. J. Walker

Madam C.J. Walker
Madam Walker in a photograph ca. 1914 by Addison Scurlock.
Born	Sarah Breedlove December 23, 1867 Delta, Louisiana
Died	May 25, 1919 (aged 51) Irvington, New York
Nationality	American

Madam Walker and several friends in her automobile.

Madam C.J. Walker (December 23, 1867 – May 25, 1919), born Sarah Breedlove, was an American entrepreneur and philanthropist, regarded as the first female self made millionaire in America. She made her fortune by developing and marketing a successful line of beauty and hair products for black women under the company she founded, Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company.

Early life

Walker was born Sarah Breedlove, on December 23, 1867 in Delta, Louisiana to Owen and Minerva Breedlove. She was one of six children; she had a sister Louvenia and four brothers: Alexander, James, Solomon, and Owen, Jr. Her parents and elder siblings were slaves on Madison Parish plantation owned by Robert W. Burney . She was the first child in her family born into freedom after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. Her mother died, possibly from cholera, in 1872. Her father remarried and died shortly afterward.

Madam C. J. Walker moved in with her older sister and brother-in-law, Willie Powell. At the age of 14, she married Moses McWilliams to escape Powell's abuse and three years later her daughter, Lelia McWilliams (A'Lelia Walker) was born. When Sarah was 20, her husband died, Lelia was just 2 years old. Shortly afterward she moved to St. Louis where three of her brothers lived; her brothers were all barbers at a local barbershop. In 1906 she married Charles Joseph Walker, a newspaper advertising salesman,

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Career

Madame C.J. Walkers Wonderful Hair Grower from the collection of the Children's Museum of Indianapolis

Like many women of her era, Sarah experienced hair loss. Because most Americans lacked indoor plumbing, central heating and electricity, they bathed and washed their hair infrequently. The result was scalp disease. Sarah experimented with home remedies and products already on the market until she finally developed her own shampoo and an ointment that contained sulfur to make her scalp healthier for hair growth.

Sarah, now known as Madam C. J. Walker, was selling her products throughout the United States. While her daughter Lelia (later known as A'Lelia Walker) ran a mail order business from Denver, Madam Walker and her husband traveled throughout the southern and eastern states. They settled in Pittsburgh in 1908 and opened Lelia College to train "hair culturists." In 1910 Walker moved to Indianapolis, Indiana where she established her headquarters and built a factory.

She began to teach and train other black women in order to help them build their own businesses. She also gave other lectures on political, economic and social issues at conventions sponsored by powerful black institutions. After the East St. Louis Race Riot, she joined leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in their efforts to support legislation to make lynching a federal crime. In 1918 at the biennial convention of the National Association Of Colored Woman (NACW) she was acknowledged for making the largest contribution to save the Anacostia (Washington, DC) house of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. She continued to donate money throughout her career the NAACP, the YMCA, and to black schools, organizations, individuals, orphanages, and retirement homes.

The grave of Madam C. J. Walker

In 1917, she moved to her Irvington-on-Hudson, New York estate, Villa Lewaro, which had been designed by Vertner Tandy, the first licensed black architect in New York State and a founding member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. The house cost $250,000 to build. Madam C.J. Walker died at Villa Lewaro on Sunday, May 25, 1919 from complications of hypertension. She was 51. At her death she was considered to be the wealthiest African-American woman in America and known to be the first self-made female American millionaire. Her daughter, A'Lelia Walker, became the president of the Madam C.J Walker Manufacturing Company.

Madam Walker was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago in 1992, the National Women's Hall of Fame, in Seneca Falls, New York, the National Cosmetology Hall of Fame and the National Direct Sales Hall of Fame. On January 28, 1998, the USPS, as part of its Black Heritage Series, issued the Madam C.J. Walker Commemorative stamp. On March 16, 2010, Congressman Charles Rangel introduced HJ81, a Congressional House Joint Resolution, honoring Madam C. J. Walker. In December 2010, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed a bill designating the block of 136th Street between Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue) and Seventh Avenue as Madam Walker and A'Lelia Walker Place.

While according to Walker's New York Times obituary, "she said herself two years ago [in 1917] that she was not yet a millionaire, but hoped to be some time," the Guinness Book of Records cites Walker as the first woman to become a millionaire by her own achievements.

Further reading

Nonfiction Biographies (which are based on primary source documents)

• A'Lelia Bundles On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker Lisa Drew Books/Scribner, 2001. ISBN 0-7434-3172-3
• Bundles, A'Lelia Madam C. J. Walker: Entrepreneur Chelsea House/Facts on File, 2008. ISBN 978-1-60413-072-0
• Colman, Penny Madam C.J. Walker: Building a Business Empire. The Millbrook Press, 1994.

Fiction/Novels (which include fictionalized information)

• Due, Tananarive The Black Rose: The Dramatic Story of Madam C.J. Walker, America's First Black Female Millionaire. Ballantine Books, 2001. ISBN 0-345-44156-7

Video links

• C-Span Book TV Madam Walker
• Madam Walker Research at the National Archives
• Madam Walker History
• U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis discusses Madam Walker
• Madam Walker's Irvington-on-Hudson, NY home Villa Lewaro

External links

• Madam Walker official biography website - Authorized site with accurate Walker biographical and historical information
• Madam Walker Theatre Center Indianapolis, IN National Historic Landmark and Original Walker Company Factory
• Madame Walker official company website - Manufactures And Distributes Original And Revamped Product Line.
• Madam Walker/A'Lelia Walker Family Archives - Private Collection of Walker photos, business documents and memorabilia
• Villa Lewaro - Madam Walker's Irvington-on-Hudson, NY estate and National Historic Landmark
• Madam Walker's 1917 National Convention History of Madam Walker's 1917 National Convention
• Harvard Business School's Madam Walker Case Study Harvard Business School
• Smithsonian Lemelson Center audio Madam Walker Smithsonian Inventions Podcast Part I
• Women Who Dared: Madam C. J. Walker "Women Who Dared: Madam Walker Biography"
• Obituary, "Wealthiest Negress Dead", The New York Times, May 26, 1919
• Madam C. J. Walker at Find a Grave
• Breedlove, Sarah. Contemporary Black Biography: "Madame C. J. Walker". Gale Research via Gale Cengage Learning*
• “Two American Entrepreneurs: Madam C. J. Walker and J.C. Penney”, a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP)