Madam C. J. Walker was orphaned at seven. She built a hair-care company and became a self-made millionaire.
Born Sarah Breedlove in 1867, the first child in her family born into freedom, Madam C. J. Walker built a cosmetics and hair-care business for Black women and gave generously.
Sarah Breedlove was born in 1867 near Delta, Louisiana, the first child in her family born into freedom. She was orphaned at seven, moved to Vicksburg, Mississippi, at ten, and worked as a child as a domestic servant. She said she had only three months of formal education, in Sunday school literacy lessons.
A laundress with a plan
In 1888 she moved to St. Louis, where she found work as a laundress, earning barely more than a dollar a day. She was determined to earn enough to give her daughter Lelia a formal education.
After her marriage to Charles Joseph Walker in 1906, she began marketing herself as “Madam C. J. Walker”. She built the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company, which made and marketed cosmetics and hair-care products for Black women.
Wealth and giving
She is recorded by the Guinness Book of World Records as the first woman to become a self-made millionaire in America, though some sources note that other women may have been earlier and that their wealth is less well documented. She gave to the NAACP and other organisations and was a patron of the arts. Her estate, Villa Lewaro in Irvington, New York, was a gathering place for the African-American community.
She died in 1919, then considered the wealthiest African-American businesswoman in the country. Her story shows what a product built for an overlooked customer can do.
