Some of us admire the rise of char knockout entrepreneur like Kim Kardashian , who ’s already made a reported$100 million with KKW Beauty , her cosmetics and perfume brand . And you might be in awe of the way of life singer Rihanna leveraged herself to build her Fenty Beauty brand co - owned withLVMH . Products like herPro Filt’r Soft Matte foundation — available in 50 shade — have made Rihanna the richest female musician in the world , with afortune nail at $ 600 million .
But both of thesefemale entrepreneursare following a trail blaze out byMadam C.J. Walkera 100 ago . " Many consider her the first ego - made American charwoman millionaire , " saysA’Lelia Bundles , Walker ’s capital - gravid granddaughter and biographer . " For a woman in business and who set in motion her product before women had the rightfield to vote , is pretty extraordinary . "
Some reports claim Walker was the first fatal woman to build up a million - one dollar bill fortune . ButGuinness World Recordslists Walker as the first ego - made female millionaire , stop .
And the fact that Walker was thedaughter of cropper , yet still built a national sword , empower hundreds of woman , and became a philanthropist and civil right wing activist throw her story even more inspiring . The recentNetflix miniseries " Self Made , " star Octavia Spencer , is loosely based on Walker ’s life chronicle .
Who Is Madam C.J. Walker?
The woman we have it off as Madam C.J. Walker wasborn Sarah Breedloveon a Louisiana cotton plantation in 1867 . The 5th child of Owen and Minerva Breedlove , who had once been enslaved , Sarah was the first of her siblings to be birth free . Her other year in Louisiana were full of battle , and Sarah was an orphan by age 7 , so she went to subsist with her old baby Louvenia and her husband . In 1877 , the family move to Vicksburg , Mississippi , where immature Sarah plunk cotton and did domesticated workplace .
At age 14she married Moses McWilliamsto escape backbreaking work and her brother - in - practice of law , who step her . Her only child , Lelia ( who subsequently changed her name to A’Lelia Walker ) , was born in June 1885 . When her married man die in 1887 , Sarah moved to St. Louis , where her brothers were Barber . She started doing washables , clear $ 1.50 a day , which set aside Walker and her daughter to attend to shoal .
By the nineties , Breedlove’shair started fall outdue to a scalp condition . There were very few hair guardianship products designed for women of African descent and hair loss was a big problem , Bundles says . She searched for a style to cure her hair loss . She tried the Poro haircloth fear line byAnnie Turnbo Malone , a contraband entrepreneur and it helped . She sold Poro for 18 months , while try out with her own fuzz - grow recipe .
Madam C.J. Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower
In 1906 , she we d Charles Joseph ( C.J. ) Walker , a sales and ad man , in Denver . He helped her withmarketing strategy and business ideas , and both of these — and his name — were utile . That same year she change her name from Sarah Breedlove to Madam C.J. Walker and launched Madam C.J. Walker ’s Wonderful Hair Grower .
" She was one of the woman who was a pioneer in a multimillion - dollar cosmetics and hair care industry , " Bundles says . " In 1906 when she founded her caller , there was no national statistical distribution for hair care and cosmetic , like when women like Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden " produce their brands .
To advertize Madam C.J. Walker ’s Wonderful Hair Grower , she and C.J. travel the South for 18 months selling room access to door and doing presentation , mostly in church building . Convinced by Walker ’s before - and - after photos , women snapped up tins of her hair grower for 50 cent each . By 1908 , Walker was earning theequivalent of $ 150,000 a year in today ’s money . She liked to say , " There would be no hair growing manufacture if I had n’t invented it . "
The accurate formula is mislay to time , but the original formula includedcoconut oil , beeswax , petrolatum ( similar to fossil oil jelly ) , cop sulphate , fall sulfur and a violet olfactory property . Coconut oil is a preferent in natural hair care today , but the key ingredient was likely sulfur , which had been used in scalp and haircloth preparation for twelvemonth . A 2019 study found that an oral form of S known asMSM endorse the ontogeny of sizable hair and fingernails , likely because it boosts the development of keratin , a protein abundant in hairsbreadth , hide and nails .
Her " Walker System " admit a vegetable - based shampoo , andGlossine , which helped smooth hair bid with a hot comb .
Building a Legacy Beyond Hair
By 1911 , Walker incorporated , then recruited and trained agents she called " beauty culturists " in major cities . As Walker ’s success grew , her wedlock deteriorated . After she view C.J. in an affair , she divorced him in 1912 .
By this time , she lived in Indianapolis , a Midwestern hub of transit and Black living . She hobnob with newspaper publishers , and finally became ally with influential politicians and militant include Ida B. Wells , W.E.B DuBois , Mary McLeod Bethune and Booker T. Washington , one of the most influential Black men in the res publica at that time .
In 1916 , she subside inNew York ’s Harlem , the epicentre of pitch-black culture . She and her daughter A’Lelia Walker Robinson opened aposh salonfeaturing Doric columns , velvet seating , parquet floors and a grand piano in the antechamber . In 1917 , Walker hosted her first interior convention for beauty culturists in Philadelphia . Besides inspiring her agent to sell more , she encouraged them to support openhearted causes through the Madam C.J. Walker Benevolent Association .
Walker donated money to Black college , and render $ 5,000 to the NAACP ’s anti - lynching store . " She visited the White House in 1917 with a grouping to attempt to persuade President [ Woodrow ] Wilson to support legislation to make lynch a federal crime , " bundle says . " In the early 20th century there were century and hundreds of lynchings , and African American human being were aim . There are many line of latitude with what ’s pass off today with Black Lives Matter . "
Wilson publicly excoriate the heinous practice thatkilled an estimate 4,742 people , but the federal politics would n’t criminalize lynching until 2018 , a century later on .
In 1918 , Walker move intoVilla Lewaro , an Italianate mansion in Irvington - on - Hudson , about 45 bit northwards of Manhattan . With 20,000 straight feet ( 1,858 straightforward meters ) spread over 34 rooms , and grand aspect of the Hudson River , the base designed by African American architectVertner Woodson Tandywas a marvel .
woefully , she did n’t get to enjoy it long . Walker died in 1919 . In her necrology , W.E.B. DuBois wrote : " It is given to few persons to translate a people in a contemporaries . Yet this was done by the late Madam C.J. Walker . "
Her Larger-Than-Life Story
Walker ’s Villa Lewaro mansion was fate aNational Historic Landmark in 1976and has mostly been doctor by Ambassador Harold E. Doley Jr. and his married woman Helena , who survive there from 1993 to 2018 . Doley , a bed investiture banker , and the first African American to own his prat on the New York Stock Exchange , had a toy role model of Villa Lewaro as a boy . In later 2018 , Richelieu Dennis , the Sundial Brands hair precaution magnate who excogitate the Shea Moisture business line , evolve the home . Dennis worked with Sephora to launch a Walker Beauty Culture hair’s-breadth care line in 2016 . The restoration work is continuing and he project to use Villa Lewaro as a think tank and base for hisNew Voices Foundationto accompaniment African American adult female entrepreneurs .
More than a dozen books and movies have feature Walker and her acclivity to riches and fame . Bundles wrote her Columbia University master ’s thesis on her great - heavy grandmother and has authored four books on her life based on her research and home archive including 50,000 papers and photographs . Her life history , " On Her Own Ground , The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker , " was publish in 2001 .
Bundles had been working with Alex Haley on a Walker project , but after Haley conk in 1992 , his estate of the realm shared the research with Tananarive Due , who wrote a fictionalized account , " The Black Rose . "
Bundles says she is looking onward to Tyrone McKinley Freeman ’s Good Book " Madam C.J. Walker ’s Gospel of Giving " which is due out in October 2020 and focalise on Walker ’s considerable philanthropy during the Jim Crow earned run average .
