Madam C. J. Walker (born Sarah Breedlove; December 23, 1867 – May 25, 1919), Mrs. Charles Joseph Walker upon her third marriage, was an American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and political and social activist. Walker is recorded as the first woman to become a self-made millionaire in America in the Guinness Book of World Records. Multiple sources mention that although other women (like Mary Ellen Pleasant) might have been the first, their wealth is not so well-documented.
Walker made her fortune by developing and marketing a line of cosmetics and hair care products for Black women through the business she founded, Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company. Walker became known also for her philanthropy and activism. Walker made financial donations to numerous organizations such as the NAACP and became a patron of the arts. Villa Lewaro, Walker's lavish estate in Irvington, New York served as a social gathering place for the African-American community. At the time of her death, Walker was considered the wealthiest African-American businesswoman and wealthiest self-made Black woman in America.
Madam C. J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove on December 23, 1867, close to Delta, Louisiana. Her parents were Owen and Minerva (née Anderson) Breedlove. Breedlove had five siblings, who included an older sister, Louvenia, and four brothers: Alexander, James, Solomon, and Owen Jr.. Robert W. Burney enslaved her older siblings and parents on his Madison Parish plantation; Sarah was the first child in her family born into freedom. Her mother died in 1872, likely from cholera; an epidemic had traveled with river passengers up the Mississippi, reaching Tennessee and related areas in 1873. Her father remarried but died a year later.
Orphaned at the age of seven, Breedlove moved to Vicksburg, Mississippi, at 10, where she lived with Louvenia and her brother-in-law, Jesse Powell. Breedlove started working as a child as a domestic servant.
"I had little or no opportunity when I started out in life, having been left an orphan and being without mother or father since I was seven years of age," Breedlove often recounted. Breedlove also stated that she had only three months of formal education, which she undertook during Sunday school literacy lessons at the church she attended during her earlier years.
In 1882, at the age of 14, Breedlove married Moses McWilliams whose age was unknown, to escape abuse from her brother-in-law, Jesse Powell. Breedlove and McWilliams had one daughter, Lelia, who was born on June 6, 1885. When McWilliams died in 1887, Breedlove was twenty; Lelia was two. Breedlove remarried in 1894, but left her second husband, John Davis, around 1903.
In January 1906, Breedlove married Charles Joseph Walker, a newspaper advertising salesman she had known in St. Louis, Missouri. After this marriage, Breedlove began marketing herself as "Madam C. J. Walker". The couple divorced in 1912; Charles died in 1926. Lelia McWilliams adopted her stepfather's surname and became known as A'Lelia Walker.
Walker was a Christian; her faith had a significant influence on her philanthropy. Walker was a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
In 1888, Breedlove moved, with Lelia, to St. Louis, where three of her brothers lived. Breedlove found work as a laundress, earning barely more than a dollar a day. Breedlove was determined to make enough money to provide Lelia with formal education. During the 1880s, Breedlove lived in a community where Ragtime music was developed; she sang at St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church and started to yearn for an educated life as she watched the community of women at her church.
Breedlove suffered severe dandruff and other scalp ailments, including baldness, due to skin disorders and the application of harsh products to cleanse hair and wash clothes. Other contributing factors to her hair loss included poor diet, illnesses, and infrequent bathing and hair washing during a time when most Americans lacked indoor plumbing, central heating, and electricity.
Initially, Breedlove learned about hair care from her brothers, who were barbers in St. Louis. Around the time of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (World's Fair at St. Louis in 1904), Breedlove became a commission agent selling products for Annie Turnbo Malone, an African-American haircare entrepreneur and owner of the Poro Company. Sales at the exposition were a disappointment since the African-American community was largely ignored.
While working for Malone, who would later become a significant rival in the haircare industry, Breedlove began to take her new knowledge and develop a product line. In July 1905, when Breedlove was 37 years old, she moved with Lelia to Denver, Colorado, where she initially continued to sell products for Malone while developing her own haircare business. However, the two businesswomen had a falling-out when Malone accused Breedlove of stealing her formula, a mixture of petroleum jelly and sulfur that had been in use for a hundred years.
After marrying Charles Walker in 1906, Breedlove marketed herself as "Madam C. J. Walker", an independent hairdresser and cosmetic cream retailer. ("Madam" was adopted from women pioneers of the French beauty industry.) Charles, also her business partner, provided advice on advertising and promotion. Walker sold her products door to door, teaching other black women how to groom and style their hair.
In 1906, Walker put A'Lelia in charge of the mail-order operation in Denver while she and Charles traveled throughout the southern and eastern United States to expand the business. In 1908, Walker and her husband relocated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where they opened a beauty parlor and established Lelia College to train "hair culturists". As an advocate of black women's economic independence, Walker opened training programs in the "Walker System" for her national network of licensed sales agents who earned healthy commissions.
After Walker closed the business in Denver in 1907, A'Lelia joined her in Pittsburgh. In 1910, when Walker established a new base in Indianapolis, A'Lelia ran the day-to-day operations in Pittsburgh. A'Lelia also persuaded her mother to establish an office and beauty salon in New York City's growing Harlem neighborhood in 1913; it became a center of African-American culture.
In 1910, Walker relocated her businesses to Indianapolis, where she established the headquarters for the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company. Walker initially purchased a house and factory at 640 North West Street. Walker later built a factory, hair salon, and beauty school to train her sales agents and added a laboratory to help with research. Walker also assembled a staff that included Freeman Ransom, Robert Lee Brokenburr, Alice Kelly, and Marjorie Joyner, among others, to assist in managing the growing company. Many of her company's employees, including those in key management and staff positions, were women.
Walker designed a method of grooming to promote hair growth and to condition the scalp through the use of her products. The system included a shampoo, a pomade stated to help hair grow, strenuous brushing, and applying iron combs to hair; Walker purported that method made lackluster and brittle hair soft and luxuriant. Walker's product line had several competitors. Walker's competitors produced similar products in Europe and the United States, including Malone's Poro System and Sarah Spencer Washington's Apex System.
Between 1911 and 1919, during the height of her career, Walker and her company employed several thousand women as sales agents for its products. By 1917, the company claimed to have trained nearly 20,000 women. While some sources have written that the women dressed in a characteristic uniform of white shirts and black skirts and carried black satchels, there is nothing in the Walker Beauty School manual that verifies that. Others have written the agents focused on door-to-door sales as they visited houses around the United States and in the Caribbean offering Walker's hair pomade and other products packaged in tin containers carrying her image. Still, the typical scenario involved Walker beauty culturists demonstrating their products in their homes and beauty salons because they needed a water source to show how the products worked. Walker understood the power of advertising and brand awareness. Heavy advertising, primarily in African-American newspapers and magazines, and Walker's frequent travels to promote her products helped make her well known in the United States.