MADAM C.J. WALKER
Born
December 23, 1867
Died
May 25, 1919
EARLY LIFE
Sarah Breedlove was born in Delta, Louisiana. Sarah was the first person in her family to be born free, both of her parents Owen and Minerva Breedlove were former slaves. Sarah had five siblings. One older sister named, Louvenia. Four brothers; Alexander, James, Solomon and Owen, Jr. Her parents had been slaves on Robert W. Burney's Madison Parish farm. After becoming emancipated her parents began to work on a cotton plantation. At the tender age of seven Sarah lost both of her parents due to yellow fever, a deadly disease often cause by mosquitoes. In 1877, Sarah's sister Louvenia gets married to Jesse Powell and the girls move to Vicksburgh, Missouri, Sarah was ten at the time. They obtained work as maids, her brother-in-law Jesse was a very abusive man so Sarah married Moses McWilliams in 1882.
Family Life
Sarah Breedlove married Moses McWilliams in 1882 at the age of fourteen. Three years later Sarah gave birth to her daughter LeLia on June 6, 1885. Two years following the birth of her daughter, Moses passed away. Without Moses for emotional and financial support Sarah was forced to work extra hard. As a last resort Sarah moved to St.Louis,Missouri to join her four brothers who had established themselves as barbers. She found work as a laundress and worked other small position jobs for the next eighteen years, for as little as .50 an hour. On August 11,1894 Sarah entered her second marriage to John Davis, The two were separated sometime around 1903. Two years following Sarah's divorce she decided to move to Denver,Colorado and became a sales representative for Annie Pope-Turnbo selling hair products. In the year On January 4, 1906 Sarah married for the third time, she married her long time friend Charles Joseph Walker. During her third marriage Sarah changed her name to Madam C.J. Walker, which is what she is known as today. The two divorced in 1913.
BUSINESS
Madam C.J Walker attended the National Association of Colored Women conference, she saw a beautiful woman named Margaret Washington. Margaret’s appearance was very clean and her hair was well taken care of. Madam walker began to think about her own appearance, She believed that if she looked like Margaret that she would become more self-confident. Don’t get me wrong Madam Walker had nice clothes and a gorgeous complexion, but she was self-conscious about her hair. It was patchy and broken and revealed her scalp in several places. Madam Walker decided to invent her own special hair care formula for black women with damaged hair. She tried several different recipes and eventually she had three different formulas, they were called the Wonderful Hair Grower, Vegetable Shampoo, and Glossince. Madam C.J Walker and her husband sold them door to door. As proof that her products worked she advertised a picture of her hair before and after using her products. Soon she was making up to a week selling her hair products.
Forming an Empire
In the year 1908, Madame C.J Walker and LeLia moved to Pittsburgh, where they opened the LeLia College. It was a college that was a training school and beauty salon. Once you graduated from this college you became a “Hair Culturist”. Madam Walker lived in Pittsburgh for two years and during that time her hair products earned an excellent reputation. Pittsburgh was great but she wanted to house her national headquarters elsewhere. In 1910, she decided that that Indianapolis, Indiana was the perfect city for her national headquarters.
On Top Of the World
Once Madam C.J. Walker’s headquarters was established and she was financially capable of retiring she moved to New York City,New York in 1916. During WW1 her New York estate was being built. Madam C.J. Walker passed away at her New York estate on May 25, 1919. She died of complications of hypertension and kidney failure, she was 51 years old.
Madam C.J. Walker and her daughter A'LeLia Walker were buried next to eachother in the same cemetary.