She was born on a cotton plantation in rural Louisiana to former slaves.
And orphaned by the age of seven.
She married at 14, a mother at 17 and a widow at 20.
A single mother living in poverty.
Who was this woman named Sarah Breedlove?
Why did she change her name to Madam C.J. Walker
and how did she become one of America's first female self-made millionaire?
Next on Marking History.
This is the historic marker for the Madam C.J. Walker Home,
located here in Indianapolis, Indiana.
The story of Madam Walker is a true “rags to riches” story
that begins two years after the American Civil War.
Madam C.J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove two days before Christmas, 1867,
in this one-room cabin on the former Burney plantation in rural Louisiana.
She was the fifth child of Owen and Minerva Breedlove
and the first not to be born into slavery.
Sarah was orphaned at age seven, married at 14 and widowed with a young daughter, by age 20.
In 1888, when Sarah was 21, she and her daughter A'Lelia,
moved to St. Louis where she joined her brothers, who worked as barbers.
With no formal education, Sarah labored the next 18 years as a washerwoman,
often earning as little as $1.50 a day.
She was determined to make enough money to provide her daughter with a formal education.
In the 1890s, she began to notice places on her scalp where she was losing her hair.
At that time, many women like Sarah washed their hair only once a month,
due to lack of running water and electricity.
Sarah's own hair loss prompted her to seek a cure.
Sarah began experimenting with home remedies
and store-bought hair care medication in an attempt to improve her condition.
In 1904, around the time of the World's Fair in St. Louis,
Sarah became a commission agent, selling products for Annie Malone,
an African-American hair-care entrepreneur and owner of the Poro Company.
While working for Malone, Sarah began to take her new knowledge and develop her own product line.
After devising her own restorative formula and steel hot comb,
she began marketing her products and beauty regimen to the black community.
Her first products included a hair grower, a pressing oil called Glossine and a vegetable shampoo.
In 1907 Sarah married journalist Charles Joseph “C.J.” Walker.
Soon, Sarah rebranded herself as “Madam C.J. Walker” in advertisements for her cosmetic services.
Madam Walker began selling her products door to door,
teaching other black women how to groom and style their hair, using the “Walker System.”
In 1910, Madam Walker moved her base of operations to Indianapolis
to take advantage of the city's bustling black businesses, its extensive train routes and thriving newspapers,
in which she was a major advertiser.
Walker understood the power of advertising and brand awareness.
Heavy advertising, primarily in African-American newspapers and magazines
helped make Walker and her products well known in the United States.
During the worst of the “Jim Crow” era,
it is amazing that Madam Walker built a lucrative enterprise
that employed thousands in the manufacture and sale of her beauty aids.
Her business opened doors for many African American women whose options for employment at that time were limited.
While unskilled white male workers were making about $11 a week,
Madam Walker's agents were earning from $5 to $15 a day.
That was more than they could make in a month doing kitchen work!
Her daughter A'lelia persuaded her mother to establish an office and beauty salon
New York City's growing Harlem neighborhood in 1913.
it became a center of African- American culture.
Just outside of New York city, Madam Walker built an incredible thirty- room mansion called Villa Lewaro.
It was designed to be a monument to her race,
and an inspiration to the African American community about a wealth of business possibilities.
Villa Lewaro served as an intellectual gathering place for leaders of the Harlem Renaissance
and a hub for civil rights activism.
Madam Walker became more involved in political matters after her move to New York.
In 1917 Madam Walker joined the executive committee of the New York NAACP,
which organized the Silent Protest Parade on New York City's Fifth Avenue.
The public demonstration drew more than 8,000 African Americans
to protest a riot in East Saint Louis that killed 39 Negroes.
At its height, the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company had over 20,000 employees nationwide.
The high profits made Walker one of the first American women to become a self-made millionaire.
Madam C. J. Walker died at Villa Lewaro on Sunday, May 25, 1919, from complications of hypertension.
She was 51.
At her death she was considered to be the wealthiest African American woman in America.
One hundred years after her death, her legacy is still an inspiration for everyone today.
This is America. It is possible to make it.
Madam Walker proved it.
If history can be taught with stories
they can never be forgotten.
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