Madam CJ Walker

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Madam CJ Walker , actually Sarah Breedlove (born December 23, 1867 in Delta , Louisiana , † May 25, 1919 in Irvington , New York , USA ) was an American entrepreneur , philanthropist and political and social activist . Hailed as one of the first female self-made millionaires in the US, she was one of the wealthiest self-made women in America and one of the most successful African-American business executives of all time. The first self-made millionaire, however, was Annie Turnbo Malone, the woman who taught and trained Walker.

Walker made her fortune by creating a beauty and hair line for black women by founding the successful Madame CJ Walker Manufacturing Company. Walker was also known for her philanthropy and activism. She donated to numerous organizations and was a patron of the arts. Villa Lewaro, Walker's posh estate in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York State, served as a social gathering place for African American society.

Childhood and youth

Breedlove was born on December 23, 1867 near Delta, Louisiana . Her parents were Owen and Minerva (Anderson) Breedlove. Sarah had five siblings: an older sister, Louvenia, and four brothers: Alexander, James, Solomon, and Owen Jr. Breedlove's parents and their older siblings were slaves on the Robert W. Burney's Madison Parish Plantation, but Sarah was the first child in their family born in freedom after the emancipation proclamation was passed. Her mother died in 1872, possibly of cholera . Her father remarried but also died in the next few years. Sarah was orphaned at age seven and moved to Vicksburg , Mississippi at age 10 , where she worked as a domestic servant. Before her first marriage, she lived with her older sister, Louvenia, and her brother-in-law, Jesse Powell. “I had little or no opportunities at the beginning of my life because I had been an orphan without a mother or father since I was seven,” she often said. She also said that she only attended school for three months, the Church Sunday School, where she learned to write and read.

marriage and family

Sarah married Moses McWilliams in 1882 at the age of 14, possibly to avoid the abuse of her brother-in-law. Sarah and Moses had a daughter, Lelia McWilliams, on June 6, 1885. When Moses died in 1887, Sarah was twenty years old and Lelia was two. Sarah remarried in 1894, but left her second husband, John Davis, in 1903 and moved to Denver , Colorado in 1905 .

In January 1906, Sarah married Charles Joseph Walker, a newspaper ad salesman she knew from Missouri . From that wedding she became known as Madam CJ Walker. The couple divorced in 1912 and Charles died in 1926. Lelia McWilliams took her stepfather's last name and was henceforth A'Lelia Walker.

Career

In 1888 Sarah and her daughter moved to Saint Louis , Missouri, where three of Sarah's brothers lived. Sarah found work as a laundress. She was making just under a dollar a day, but she was determined to give her daughter an education. During the 1880s, Breedlove lived in a community where ragtime music originated. She sang in St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church and began to long for an educated life as she watched the fellowship of women in her church. As was common for black women of her era, Sarah suffered from severe dandruff and scalp conditions such as baldness due to skin conditions and the use of harsh products like lye , which were part of the soap used to wash hair and clothes. Other factors contributing to their hair loss included poor diet, illness, and infrequent bathing and shampooing at a time when most Americans had no plumbing, central heating, and electricity in their homes.

Sarah initially learned about hair care from her brothers who were barbers in Saint Louis. At the time of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (a 1904 St. Louis world fair), she began selling products as a commission agent for Annie Turnbo Malone, an African American hair care entrepreneur, millionaire and owner of the Poro Company. While working for Malone, who would later become Walker's greatest rival in the hair care industry, Sarah began using the hair knowledge she acquired while selling Annie Malone's hair products to create her own line of products.

In July 1905, when she was 37, Sarah and her daughter moved to Denver, Colorado, where she continued to sell products for Malone and develop her own hair care business. A controversy arose between Annie Malone and Sarah as Sarah marketed Malone's hair growth formula as her own. After marrying Charles Walker in 1906, she became Madam CJ Walker and marketed herself as an independent hairdresser and cosmetic cream seller. (“Madam” took it over from female pioneers in the French beauty industry). Her husband, who was also her business partner, offered her advice on advertising and promotion. Sarah sold her products door-to-door teaching other black women how to care for and style their hair.

In 1906, Walker handed her daughter responsibility for the Denver shipping operations while she and her husband traveled the southern and eastern United States to expand their business. In 1908, Walker and her husband moved to Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania , where they opened a beauty salon and built Lelia College for Hair Culturists. After losing the Denver business in 1907, A'lelia took over day-to-day operations from Pittsburgh, while Walker built a new location in Indianapolis in 1910 . A'lelia also persuaded her mother to open an office and beauty salon in New York 's Harlem neighborhood in 1913 .

To increase the company's sales force, Walker taught other women to become "Beauty Culturists" using "The Walker System," their method of grooming designed to stimulate hair growth and condition the scalp Improve products. Walker's system included a shampoo , a pomade to aid in hair growth, tireless brushing, and the use of iron combs in the hair. This method should make dull and brittle hair soft and luxurious. Walker's line of products had several competitors. Similar products were made in Europe and manufactured by other companies in the US, including their main rivals, Annie Turnbo Malone's Poro System, from which she derived her original formula, and later Sarah Spencer Washington's Apex System.

Between 1911 and 1919, at the height of her career, Walker and her company hired thousands of women as sales representatives for their products. The company claims to have trained almost 20,000 women by 1917. They wore distinctive uniforms consisting of white tops and black skirts, as well as a black shoulder bag, and visited homes in the United States and the Caribbean , where they sold Walker's hair pomade and other products in tin containers with their picture on them. Walker understood the power of advertising and brand awareness. Much advertising, especially in African American journals and magazines, along with Walker's frequent trips to promote her products, made Walker's products very well known in the United States. Her name became even more popular in the 1920s, after her death, as her company's trading market expanded beyond the United States to Cuba , Jamaica , Haiti , Panama, and Costa Rica .

In addition to training in sales and caregiving, Walker showed other black women how to housekeeping and start their own businesses, and encouraged them to become financially independent. In 1917, inspired by the pattern of the National Association of Colored Women , Walker began organizing their sales representatives in state and local clubs. This resulted in the National Beauty Culturists and Benevolent Association of Madam CJ Walker Agents (predecessor organization of the Madam CJ Walker Beauty Culturists Union of America). Its first annual meeting was held in Philadelphia in the summer of 1917 with 200 participants. The conference is considered to be one of the first national gatherings of women entrepreneurs to discuss business and trade. During the conference, Walker awarded prizes to agents who had sold the most products and introduced the newest sales agents. It also rewarded those who made the largest contributions to charities in their communities.

Activism and philanthropy

The more Walker's wealth and notoriety grew, the more openly she spoke about her beliefs. In 1912, Walker spoke from the exhibition hall at the annual meeting of the National Negro Business League (NNBL) and proclaimed: “I am a woman who comes from the cotton fields of the south. From there I was promoted to the wash tub. From there I was promoted to the kitchen. And from there I promoted myself to managing director of a company that makes hair products and preparations. I've built my own factory on my own land. ”The next year, Walker was one of the keynote speakers on the podium.

She helped raise funds to establish a branch of the Young Men's Christian Association ( YMCA ) in the Indianapolis black community by pledging $ 1,000 for the YMCA building fund on Senate Avenue. Walker also contributed funds to the Tuskegee Institute scholarships. Other beneficiaries were the Indianapolis Flanner House, the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church , Mary McLeod Bethune's Daytona Education and Industrial School for Negro Girls (which later became the Bethune-Cookman University was) in Daytona Beach, Florida , the Palmer Memorial Institute in North Carolina and the Haines Normal and Industrial Institute in Georgia . Walker was also a patron of the arts.

Around 1913, Walker's daughter A'Lelia moved into a new townhouse in Harlem, and in 1917 Walker moved to live with her in New York. She left the day-to-day running of her company to her management team in Indianapolis. In 1917, Walker Vertner commissioned Tandy, the first licensed black architect in New York City and a founding member of the Alpha Phi Alpha Association, to design their home in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York. Walker intended the Lewaro villa, which cost $ 250,000 to build, to provide a gathering place for community leaders and a place to motivate African Americans to pursue their dreams. In May 1918, she moved into the house and hosted an opening event in honor of Emmett Jay Scott, who was the US Department of War's Assistant Secretary for Negro Affairs at the time.

After moving to New York, Walker became more involved in political affairs. She gave lectures on political, economic and social issues at congresses sponsored by powerful black institutions. Her friends and acquaintances included Booker T. Washington , Mary McLeod Bethune and WEB Du Bois . During World War I , Walker was a leader of the Circle For Negro War Relief and an advocate for establishing a training camp for black Army officers. In 1917 she became a member of the executive committee in New York of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which organized the silent march on New York City's Fifth Avenue. Over 8,000 African Americans attended the demonstration to protest an uprising in East Saint Louis that killed 39 African Americans.

The profit from her business had a significant impact on Walker's contributions in the context of her political and philanthropic interests. In 1918, the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC) presented Walker with an award for making the largest individual donation to preserve Frederick Douglass Anacostia House. Prior to her death in 1919, Walker pledged $ 5,000 to NAACP's Anti- Lynch Fund (equivalent to $ 65,000 in 2012). At the time, it was the largest donation from an individual NAACP had ever received. Walker bequeathed nearly $ 100,000 to orphanages, institutions, and individuals; her will directed two-thirds of her future net profits from her property to charities.

Death and legacy

Walker died on May 25, 1919 of kidney failure and complications from her high blood pressure at the age of 51. She was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx , New York City.

At the time of her death, Walker was considered the wealthiest African American woman in America. She was hailed as the first female self-made millionaire in America, and her estate was worth more than $ 600,000 (more than 8 million in today's dollars) when she died. According to Walker's obituary in the New York Times, "she said to herself two years ago [in 1917] that she was not yet a millionaire, but hoped to be one day." At the time of Walker's death, the average American annual income was around $ 750. Her daughter, A'Lelia Walker, became President of Madame CJ Walker Manufacturing Company.

Walker's personal records are on file with the Indiana Historical Society in Indianapolis. Her legacy is also preserved in the form of two properties on the National Register of Historic Places : the Lewaro mansion in Irvington, New York and the Madame Walker Theater Center in Indianapolis. The Lewaro villa was sold to a fraternal organization called Companions of the Forest in America after A'Lelia Walker's death in 1932. The home was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The National Trust for Historic Preservation named the privately owned property a National Treasure. The Walker Manufacturing Company headquarters in Indianapolis, renamed the Madame Walker Theater Center, opened in December 1927; it included the company's offices and factory as well as a theater, a beauty school, a hair salon and barber shop, a restaurant, a drugstore and a party room for the community. This building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

In 2006, playwright and director Regina Taylor wrote The Dreams of Sarah Breedlove , which tells the story of Walker's struggles and successes. The play opened at the Goodman Theater in Chicago . Actress L. Scott Caldwell played Walker.

On March 4, 2016, skin and hair care company Sundial Brands launched a collaboration with Sephora in honor of Walker's legacy. The series, titled Madam CJ Walker Beauty Culture, comprised four collections and focused on the use of natural ingredients to care for different hair types. In 2017, Octavia Spencer agreed to portray Walker in a TV series based on Walker's biography of A'Lelia Bundles, Walker's great-great-granddaughter. On March 20, 2020, Netflix released the four-part TV miniseries Self Made: The Life of Madam CJ Walker .

Honors

Numerous scholarships and awards have been named after Walker:

  • The Madam CJ Walker Business and Community Recognition Awards are sponsored by the Oakland / Bay Area subsidiary of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women. An annual lunch honors Walker and awards grants to outstanding women in the community.
  • The Spirit Awards sponsored the Madame Walker Theater Center in Indianapolis. Since 2006, as a tribute to Walker, the annual awards have honored national leaders in entrepreneurship, philanthropy, civic engagement and the arts. Awards given to individuals include the Madame CJ Walker Award as well as young entrepreneur awards and estate awards.
  • Walker was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca, New York, in 1993. In 1998, the US Post issued a Madame Walker commemorative stamp as part of the Black Heritage series.

literature

  • A'Lelia Bundles (descendant): On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam CJ Walker . Scribner, 2002. ISBN 978-0-7434-3172-9
  • Nancy Kuhl: Intimate Circles. American Women in the Arts. Catalog book with essays. Yale University Press , New Haven 2007 ISBN 0-300-13402-9 (essay / pictures on bundles; in English)
  • Madam CJ Walker , in: Sheila Rowbotham : A Century of Women. The History of Women in Britain and the United States . London: Viking, 1997 ISBN 0-670-87420-5 , p. 641

Web links

Commons : Madam CJ Walker  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Madam CJ Walker. Retrieved February 19, 2019 .
  2. ^ Glaeser, Edward L. (Edward Ludwig), 1967-: Triumph of the city: how our greatest invention makes us richer, smarter, greener, healthier, and happier . Penguin Press, New York 2011, ISBN 978-1-59420-277-3 .
  3. ^ How America's First Self-Made Female Millionaire Built Her Fortune. Retrieved February 19, 2019 .
  4. ^ A b c John N. Ingham: Walker, Madam CJ (1867-1919), businesswoman (=  American National Biography Online ). Oxford University Press, February 2000, doi : 10.1093 / anb / 9780198606697.article.1001700 .
  5. ↑ a b c Susannah Walker, A'Lelia Bundles: On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam CJ Walker . In: Journal of Southern History . tape 69 , no. 1 , February 1, 2003, ISSN  0022-4642 , p. 208 , doi : 10.2307 / 30039899 .
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h Madam CJ Walker. Retrieved February 19, 2019 (American English).
  7. ↑ Madam CJ Walker. Retrieved February 19, 2019 (American English).
  8. ↑ Susannah Walker, A'Lelia Bundles: On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam CJ Walker . In: Journal of Southern History . tape 69 , no. 1 , February 1, 2003, ISSN  0022-4642 , p. 208 , doi : 10.2307 / 30039899 .
  9. ^ John N. Ingham: Walker, Madam CJ (1867-1919), businesswoman (=  American National Biography Online ). Oxford University Press, February 2000, doi : 10.1093 / anb / 9780198606697.article.1001700 .
  10. ↑ Gugin, Linda C. ,, St. Clair, James E.,: Indiana's 200: the people who shaped the Hoosier State . Indianapolis, ISBN 978-0-87195-387-2 .
  11. ↑ a b c d Madam CJ Walker. Retrieved February 19, 2019 .
  12. ^ A b c d John N. Ingham: Walker, Madam CJ (1867-1919), businesswoman (=  American National Biography Online ). Oxford University Press, February 2000, doi : 10.1093 / anb / 9780198606697.article.1001700 .
  13. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j LG BERLIN-BRANDENBURG . In: VPT magazine . tape 02 , no. 08 , September 2, 2016, ISSN  2364-2904 , p. 22-24 , doi : 10.1055 / s-0036-1592212 .
  14. ↑ Susannah Walker, A'Lelia Bundles: On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam CJ Walker . In: Journal of Southern History . tape 69 , no. 1 , February 1, 2003, ISSN  0022-4642 , p. 208 , doi : 10.2307 / 30039899 .
  15. ↑ a b c d e f g h Bundles, A'Lelia Perry .: On her own ground: the life and times of Madam CJ Walker . Washington Square Press, New York 2002, ISBN 0-7434-3172-3 .
  16. ^ A b John N. Ingham: Walker, Madam CJ (1867-1919), businesswoman (=  American National Biography Online ). Oxford University Press, February 2000, doi : 10.1093 / anb / 9780198606697.article.1001700 .
  17. ^ Hunter Oatman-Stanford: The Sharecropper's Daughter Who Made Black Women Proud of Their Hair. Retrieved February 19, 2019 .
  18. ↑ a b c d e A'Lelia Bundles: Madam CJ Walker's Secrets to Success. Retrieved February 19, 2019 (American English).
  19. ↑ Buckland, Gail., Lefer, David .: They made America: from the steam engine to the search engine: two centuries of innovators . 1st ed. Little, Brown, New York 2004, ISBN 0-316-27766-5 .
  20. ↑ a b c Arendt Speser: Harvard Business School Career Guide to Management Consulting for CD ‐ ROM9786 Tim Opler. Harvard Business School Career Guide to Management Consulting for CD-ROM. 60 Harvard Way, Boston, MA 02163: Harvard Business School Publishing 1996. URL: http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu . In: Electronic Resources Review . tape 1 , no. September 9 , 1997, ISSN  1364-5137 , pp. 103-105 , doi : 10.1108 / err.1997.1.9.103.86 .
  21. ↑ a b c d e f Madame CJ Walker (Sarah Breedlove McWilliams Walker): Inventor, Businesswoman. Retrieved February 19, 2019 .
  22. ^ Cemin, Saint Clair (=  Benezit Dictionary of Artists ). Oxford University Press, October 31, 2011, doi : 10.1093 / benz / 9780199773787.article.b00034549 .
  23. ^ John N. Ingham: Walker, Madam CJ (1867-1919), businesswoman (=  American National Biography Online ). Oxford University Press, February 2000, doi : 10.1093 / anb / 9780198606697.article.1001700 .
  24. ↑ a b c Wealthiest Negress Dead. Retrieved February 19, 2019 .
  25. ^ John N. Ingham: Walker, Madam CJ (1867-1919), businesswoman (=  American National Biography Online ). Oxford University Press, February 2000, doi : 10.1093 / anb / 9780198606697.article.1001700 .
  26. ↑ A'Lelia Bundles: Woodlawn Cemetery | Madam CJ Walker. Retrieved February 19, 2019 .
  27. ^ The History of American Income. Retrieved February 19, 2019 .
  28. ↑ #TelltheFullHistory | National Trust for Historic Preservation. Retrieved February 19, 2019 (American English).
  29. ↑ Sign the Pledge to Protect Villa Lewaro - And Learn How You Can Tour It | National Trust for Historic Preservation. Retrieved February 19, 2019 (American English).
  30. ^ John N. Ingham: Walker, Madam CJ (1867-1919), businesswoman (=  American National Biography Online ). Oxford University Press, February 2000, doi : 10.1093 / anb / 9780198606697.article.1001700 .
  31. ↑ a b The Dreams of Sarah Breedlove | Goodman Theater. Retrieved February 19, 2019 .
  32. ^ The Dreams of Sarah Breedlove | Goodman Theater. Retrieved February 19, 2019 .
  33. ^ Cassandra Imfeld: PR Newswire . In: Encyclopedia of Public Relations . SAGE Publications, Inc., California, ISBN 978-0-7619-2733-4 , doi : 10.4135 / 9781412952545.n322 .
  34. ^ Raquel Laneri: Manse built by America's first self-made millionairess seeks new life. In: New York Post. February 18, 2017, accessed February 19, 2019 .
  35. ↑ 17th Annual Madam CJWalker 2015 Luncheon | National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc. Retrieved February 19, 2019 (American English).
  36. ↑ Walker, Madam CJ. Retrieved February 19, 2019 (American English).
  37. ↑ US Stamp Gallery >> Madam CJ Walker. Retrieved February 19, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Walker, Madam CJ
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Breedlove, Sarah (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and political and social activist
DATE OF BIRTH December 23, 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH Delta , Louisiana
DATE OF DEATH May 25, 1919
Place of death Irvington , USA