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Birth of Madam C.J. Walker
Madam C. J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove on December 23, 1867. Her parents, Owen and Minerva, were Louisiana sharecroppers who had been born into slavery. -
Orphaned
Hardship marked her past life; she was orphaned at six years old. -
Married To 1st Husband
Married at fourteen (to Moses McWilliams, with whom she had a daughter, A'Lelia, in 1885) -
A'Lelia's Birth
Madam C. J. Walker had a daughter with Moses McWilliams. -
Earned money to pay
There, Sarah found work as a washerwoman, earning $1.50 a day — enough to send her daughter to the city's public schools.
She also attended public night school whenever she could. While in St. Louis, Breedlove met husband Charles J. Walker, who worked in advertising and would later help promote her hair care business. -
Hair Problems/ Scalp Disorder
During the 1890s, Sarah developed a scalp disorder that caused her to lose much of her hair, and she began to experiment with both home remedies and store-bought hair care treatments in an attempt to improve her condition. -
Remaired to John Davis
In 1903 she divorced her 2nd husband; John Davis. -
Hired for Hair
In 1905, she was hired as a commission agent by Annie Turnbo Malone — a successful, Black, hair-care product entrepreneur — and she moved to Denver, Colorado. -
Remaired to Charles Walker
They got divorced in 1912. He had helped her with her business. -
Business has begun
While there, Sarah's husband, Charles, helped her create advertisements for a hair care treatment for African Americans that she was perfecting. Her husband also encouraged her to use the more recognizable name "Madam C.J. Walker," by which she was thereafter known. In 1907 Walker and her husband traveled around the South and Southeast promoting her products and giving lecture demonstrations of her "Walker Method" — involving her own formula for pomade, brushing and the use of heated combs. -
Profits are Growing
As profits continued to grow, in 1908 Walker opened a factory and a beauty school in Pittsburgh -
Millionare money
When Walker transferred her business operations to Indianapolis, the Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company had become wildly successful, with profits that were the modern-day equivalent of several million dollars. -
Leader for Business
In Indianapolis, the company not only manufactured cosmetics but also trained sales beauticians. These "Walker Agents" became well known throughout the Black communities of the United States. In turn, they promoted Walker's philosophy of "cleanliness and loveliness" as a means of advancing the status of African Americans. -
Big Donation
She also donated the largest amount of money by an African American toward the construction of an Indianapolis YMCA in 1913. -
Harlem Years
In 1913, Walker and Charles divorced, and she traveled throughout Latin America and the Caribbean promoting her business and recruiting others to teach her hair care methods. While her mother traveled, A'Lelia helped facilitate the purchase of property in Harlem, New York, recognizing that the area would be an important base for future business operations. -
Harlem Years
Walker quickly immersed herself in the social and political culture of the Harlem Renaissance. She founded philanthropies that included educational scholarships and donations to homes for the elderly, the NAACP, and the National Conference on Lynching, among other organizations focused on improving the lives of African Americans. -
Home Sweet Home
In 1918, at Irvington-on-Hudson — about 20 miles north of New York City in the Hudson Valley — Walker built an Italianate mansion she called Villa Lewaro. It was designed by Vertner Tandy, an accomplished African American architect. Villa Lewaro was a gathering place for many luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976. -
Death of Madam C.J. Walker
Walker died of hypertension on May 25, 1919, at age 51, at Villa Lewaro.
