Madam C. J. Walker
1867–1919 · Entrepreneur born to formerly enslaved parents who built a hair-care company and became one of America's first self-made women millionaires.
Sarah Breedlove was born on a cotton plantation in Delta, Louisiana, the first child in her family born free after emancipation. She was orphaned at seven, married at fourteen, and widowed at twenty, with a young daughter, A'Lelia. She moved to St. Louis, where she worked as a washerwoman for little more than a dollar a day and sang in the church choir. Suffering from hair loss, she experimented with remedies and worked as a sales agent for another Black businesswoman, Annie Malone. In 1906, after marrying Charles Joseph Walker, she began selling her own hair-care products as Madam C. J. Walker. She traveled widely selling door to door, then built a factory and beauty school in Indianapolis and trained thousands of Black women as sales agents, giving them a way to earn a good living. She gave generously to the YMCA, schools and the NAACP and supported campaigns against lynching. She built a mansion on the Hudson River in New York. She died in 1919.
Faith: A Christian and member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; her faith shaped her philanthropy. Source: Wikipedia
Key dates
- 1867 Born in Delta, Louisiana
- 1888 Moves to St. Louis
- 1906 Starts her business as Madam C. J. Walker
- 1910 Builds headquarters in Indianapolis
- 1919 Dies at Irvington, New York
Record-breaker
Firsts and records, worded as the sources give them ("first known", "at the time").
- Guinness World Records lists her as the first woman in America to become a self-made millionaire, though other women may have been earlier with less documented wealth. (Source: Madam C. J. Walker (Wikipedia))
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Grades 9–12
- On Her Own Ground by A'Lelia Bundles (Scribner, 2002; ISBN 9780743431729)
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