Madam Walker was born Sarah Breedlove on December 23, 1867 to Owen and Minerva Breedlove in Delta, Louisiana. She was the first of four siblings to be
born free. After the death of her parents she moved into the home of her older sister and brother-in-law. She married at the age of 14 to Moses
McWilliams to escape the abuse inflicted on her by her brother-in-law. Three years later she gave birth to a daughter named Lelia
McWilliams. When she was 20 years old her husband died. Shortly after his death she and her two-year-old daughter moved to St. Louis, Mo to be near
three of her brothers and for a better life style. She remarried in 1906 to Charles Joseph Walker who was a newspaper advertising salesman. Like many
other women at that time Sarah experience hair loss because of the lack of poor diet, stress, no electricity, no indoor plumbing and poor heating.
The lack of the later three made washing of one's hair difficult on a regular basis, which resulted in scalp disease. To combat the disease she tried
different home remedies and some products available in the market place. She prayed to God for help and in a dream a man came to her and advised her
on what ingredients to put in her hair shampoo to solve her problem. After obtaining the ingredients and mixing them in what she had been experiencing
she met with success. This formula. Soon her scalp disease was cured and she grew a heather head of hair.
Sarah was now known as Madam C.J. Walker. She was selling her hair products in all parts of the country. She and her daughter began a mail order
business in Denver, Co. She and her husband traveled throughout the southern and eastern states promoting her products. In 1908 they settled in
Pittsburgh and opened Lelia College to train women in the art of using her products. Two years later she moved to Indianapolis, Indiana where she
made her headquarters and built a factory.
She trained other women so that they could start their own businesses. She had as many as 20,000 agents at the height of her career. She did this
by starting a company with only $1.50. She also was heavily involved in politics and social issues. She began to speak at conventions that were
sponsored by large Black institutions. Following the East St. Louis Race Riot she joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP) to help in the fight to eradicate lynching. At the biennial convention of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), in 1918,
she was acknowledged for making the largest contribution to save Frederick Douglass’s Anacostia house in Washington, DC. She continued to donate
money throughout her life to the NAACP, Black schools, YMCA, organizations, individuals, orphanages, and retirement homes.
She moved to her Irvington-on Hudson, New York estate that had been designed by Vertner Tandy, the first licensed Black architect in New
Your State and who was a founding member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. The cost of the estate was $250,000. When she died on Sunday, May 25, 1919 of
complications associated with hypertension she was 51 years old. At the time of her death she was thought to be the first self-made female American
millionaire. Her last words spoken before she slipped in a comma were:
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
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
EARLY LIFE
"I WANT TO LIVE FOR MY PEOPLE"
FURTHER READING