Madam C. J. Walker was one of the 1st American, female self-made millionaires at a time (early 1900’s) when white men ruled the business world. She was also an African American daughter of slaves. She made her fortune thanks to a homemade line of hair care products she invented herself and marketed for black women. But Walker was far more than just a millionaire. She was also a business savvy entrepreneur, generous philanthropist, and Black activist. Madam Walker rose from poverty in the post-Civil War segregated South to become one of the wealthiest African American women of her time. She then used her fortune to advocate for the advancement of Black lives. How did she accomplish this?
Walker was born Sarah Breedlove in 1867, on a Louisiana cotton plantation. Her parents were recently freed slaves following the Civil War, now dirt-poor sharecroppers. Sarah was their 5th child and the first to be born free. Sadly, both her parents passed away early in her life, just a year apart, leaving poor Sarah an orphan at only 7. She was sent to live with her older married sister in Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1877. There Sarah picked cotton in the hot fields owned by white farmers.
To escape both the oppressive work and an abusive brother-in-law, she married young to Moses McWilliams at only 14. At 18, she gave birth to her first and only child, a daughter, A’Lelia. Just two years later, in 1887, Moses died unexpectedly, leaving her a young widow AND a single black parent in the deep South. How would she survive now? She decided to move them both to St. Louis, where Sarah’s four older brothers were established barbers.
In Missouri, Sarah found work as a washerwoman earning about $1.50 a day.
But this was enough to send her daughter to public school and herself to public night school. She also sang in the choir of the St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church where she met leading black citizens of St. Louis. Their education and success inspired her to become active in the National Association of Colored Women. She also met the man who would become her future husband, Charles Walker, an ad man for a black newspaper.
So how did she become the famous Madam C. J. Walker? During the 1890s, Sarah suffered from a scalp disorder that caused her to lose much of her beautiful black hair. So she began to experiment with the few store-bought treatments available and her own home remedies she remembered from Mississippi.
First, she began using another product – Annie Tumbo Malone’s “Great Wonderful Hair Grower.” Malone was a successful black businesswoman who Sarah admired. Struggling financially and tired of years of physical labor, she applied to join Malone’s team of sales agents. Annie Malone was impressed with the young woman and in 1905, she hired Sarah as a commissioned agent. That year, she moved with her daughter to her new sales area, Denver, Colorado, with just $1.05 savings in her pocket.
After learning the business, and having experienced her own hair issues, Sarah realized there were few products for women of color and a HUGE market. She was inspired by her earlier tinkering to create her own line of haircare products for black women. She came up with a successful regimen that would completely change the black hair care industry.
Sarah’s method involved scalp preparation, special homemade lotions and heated iron combs.
In Denver, she again met ad-man Charles Joseph Walker and they married in 1906. She rebranded herself using her married name as “Madam C.J. Walker.” Then with her husband’s advertising help, launched her own line of hair products for African American women. “The Walker System” of hair care was born, including her own “Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower.”
A talented entrepreneur with a knack for self-promotion, Walker first began selling her products to black women door to door. She sold her homemade treatments using a personal approach that won her loyal customers. Her hair grower, custom pomade, glossine softener and vegetable based shampoo were wild successes. Most hair products were manufactured by white businessmen, so she emphasizing the health and beauty of the black women who use it.
In 1907, Walker and her husband traveled the South promoting her products and giving lecture demonstrations of her “Walker System.” Through them, her products gained a loyal following of satisfied customers, changing her fortunes forever. Her husband helped her with marketing and advertising to start a new mail-order business known as the Madam C. J. Walker Company. It was so successful she went on to employ her own saleswomen, whom she dubbed “beauty culturalists.”
In 1908, Walker opened a beauty training school for her sales force and a factory in Pittsburgh, Madame C. J. Walker Laboratories. She put her daughter, A’Lelia now 23, in charge of the mail-order business. In 1910, Sarah relocated the headquarters, school and factory to Indianapolis, a better railroad hub and a large population of African Americans. She left the management of the Pittsburgh branch to A’Lelia. But, as the business grew, her marriage suffered. Her and husband grew apart and eventually divorced in 1912.
Her saleswomen, “Walker Agents,” became well known throughout African American communities.
They promoted Walker’s philosophy of “cleanliness and loveliness” as a way of elevating African American women. Her business acumen led her to be one of the first American women to become a self-made millionaire. The Company employed over three thousand people in the US, largely black women who sold Walker’s products door-to-door. Walker’s business grew rapidly, with sales exceeding $500,000 in the final year of her life. Her total worth topping $1 million dollars.
After her divorce, she traveled in Latin America and the Caribbean, promoting her Walker System and recruiting Spanish speaking agents. Her success allowed her to finally live in homes far greater than the shacks she had grown up in. While her mother traveled, A’Lelia purchased property in Harlem, New York, knowing its importance for future business operations. Upon returning to the US in 1916, Walker moved into a new townhouse in Harlem from which she operated her business.
Walker organized clubs and conventions for her sales reps, recognizing not only successful sales, but also educational efforts for African American women. An advocate of black women’s economic independence, she opened national training programs in the “Walker System” for her sales agents, who she paid healthy commissions.
Her Manhattan townhouse became a salon for members of the famous Harlem Renaissance, with people like W.E.B. du Bois. In 1918, at Irvington-on-Hudson, 20 miles north of New York City, Walker built an Italianate mansion she called Villa Lewaro, designed by an African American architect. Villa Lewaro was also a gathering place for many luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance.
Sarah’s reputation as an entrepreneur was matched only by her philanthropy.
She became one of America’s best-known African Americans. At her employee clubs, she encouraging women to give back to their black communities. She promoted female talent, ensuring that only a woman could serve as company president. She donated to educational causes and black charities, funding scholarships for women at the Tuskegee Institute, donating to the NAACP’s anti lynching movement, the construction of an Indianapolis black YMCA, homes for the elderly of color, and dozens of others.
Sadly, Walker died at Villa Lewaro in 1919 of hypertension due to failing kidneys, at only 51. She left one-third of her estate to her daughter A’Lelia, who would carry on her mother’s role in the Harlem Renaissance, especially the arts. Two-thirds went to various African American charities and schools. In 1931, A’Lelia’s adopted daughter Mae Walker became the proud president of the Walker Company.
In 1981, the Walker Company ceased operations, but her legacy lives on to this day. A line of Madam C. J. Walker Beauty Products is still available at Sephora retailers. In 1998, the U.S. Postal Service honored Sarah Breedlove Walker with a commemorative stamp as part of its Black Heritage Series. And in 2019, NETFLIX released SELF MADE, a 4 part mini-series on her amazing life, starring Academy Award winning actress Octavia Spencer.