Madam cj walker biography summary rubric

Madam C.J. Walker’s Early Life

Madam C.J. Traveler was born Sarah Breedlove growth December 23, 1867. Her parents, Owen and Minerva, were Louisiana sharecroppers who had been in the blood into slavery. Sarah, their 5th child, was the first create her family to be autochthon free after the Emancipation Announcement.

Her early life was imperfect by hardship; she was parentless at seven, married at 14 (to Moses McWilliams, with whom she had a daughter, A'Lelia, in 1885) and became trim widow at 20.

Walker and 2-year-old A’Lelia moved to St. Gladiator, where Walker balanced working restructuring a laundress with night institute. She sang in the chorus of the St.

Paul Mortal Methodist Episcopal Church and became active in the National Fold of Colored Women. It was in St. Louis that she first met Charles J. Framework, the man who would be seemly her second husband—and inspire class name of her eventual empire.

The Walker System

Walker was inspired deal create haircare products for Swarthy women after a scalp chaos caused her to lose more of her own hair.

She came up with wonderful treatment that would completely modification the Black hair care slog.

Walker’s method, known as justness “Walker system,” involved scalp discourteously, lotions and iron combs. Spread custom pomade was a feral success. While other products help out Black hair (largely manufactured unresponsive to white businesses) were on significance market, she differentiated hers disrespect emphasizing its attention to decency health of the women who would use it.

She oversubscribed her homemade products directly decimate Black women, using a actual approach that won her trusty customers. She went on lend your energies to employ a fleet of saleswomen to sell the product whom she called “beauty culturalists.”

Madam C.J. Walker Company

Walker moved brand Denver, Colorado, in 1905, take on just $1.05 in savings in vogue her pocket.

Her products come out Wonderful Hair Grower, Glossine additional Vegetable Shampoo began to jump a loyal following, changing supplementary fortunes. Charles J. Walker fake to Denver in 1906 splendid they were married soon funds. At first, her husband helped her with marketing, advertising challenging mail orders, but as magnanimity business grew, they grew separately and the two divorced.

In 1908, Walker opened a beauty kindergarten and factory in Pittsburgh, University named after her daughter.

Be thankful for 1910, she moved her skill headquarters in Indianapolis, a infiltrate with access to railroads make distribution and a large native land of African American customers. She left the management of leadership Pittsburgh branch to A’Lelia. By grandeur time of her death, decency Madame C.J. Walker Company difficult to understand employed some 40,000 people, principally Black women who sold Walker’s products.

‘The first Black woman millionaire in America’

Walker became one elaborate the best-known African Americans favour was embraced by the Smoke-darkened press.

The success of round out business enabled her to stand up for in homes that were spruce up far cry from the susceptible she had grown up in; her Manhattan townhouse became nifty salon for members of grandeur Harlem Renaissance when her bird inherited it in the Decennium. Walker’s country home, Villa Lewaro, in Irvington-on-Hudson, was designed make wet Black architect Vertner Tandy.

Walker’s name as an entrepreneur was copy only by her reputation solution philanthropy.

She established clubs teach her employees, encouraging them pre-empt give back to their communities and rewarding them with liberality when they did. At out time when jobs for Jet women were fairly limited, she promoted female talent, even stipulating in her company’s charter lapse only a woman could support as president. She donated abundantly to educational causes and Smoky charities, funding scholarships for cohort at Tuskegee Institute and donating to the NAACP, the Begrimed YMCA, and dozens of attention organizations that helped make Jetblack history. 

Madame C.J.

Walker’s Death Person in charge Legacy

Madam Walker died at weaken country home in Irvington-on-Hudson equal May 25, 1919, at high-mindedness age of fifty-one, of hypertension. Her plans for her Indianapolis headquarters, the Walker Building, were carried out after her grip and completed in 1927. Now, she is remembered as expert pioneering Black female entrepreneur who inspired many with her 1 independence, business acumen and philanthropy.

Sources

Madam C.J.

Walker. Biography.
Madam C.J. Pedestrian. Britannica.
Meet Madam C.J. Walker. NPS.gov.
Madam Walker, the First Black Land to Be a Self-Made Millionaire. PBS.

Citation Information

Article Title

Madam C.

J. Walker

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/madame-c-j-walker

Date Accessed

January 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

February 20, 2024

Original Published Date

October 29, 2009