Biography of madame c j walker
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The New Yorker (March 19, 2001)
Bundles’s great-great-grandmother Madam C. J. Walker founded a cosmetics empire in the early nineteen-hundreds. Born in 1867 to former slaves on a Louisiana plantation, Walker was working as a laundress in St. Louis in the eighteen-nineties when she began losing her hair. First, she developed the scalp ointments that would make her rich; then she established a network of black women to use and sell the products, who went on to escape poverty as she had. After years of contributing to black charities and anti-lynching campaigns, she died in her Westchester mansion, not far from the Rockefeller estate. The author’s extensive research and unemphatic style encourage readers to find their own relation to this exemplary American figure.
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The New York Times (April 1, 2001)
Walker’s biographer and great-great granddaughter, A’Lelia Bundles, does not overestimate her importance when she calls Walker one of the pioneers in her use of direct sales (the Fuller Brush Company was founded in 1906, the same year as Walker’s), marketing strategies and commissions. Bundles writes: ”As an early advocate of women’s economic independence she provided lucrative incomes for thousands of African-American
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Housatonic Campus Library
Biography
Born Sarah Breedlove on Dec 23, 1867, on a plantation divulge Delta, Louisiana, one pay six lineage of Reformer and Minerva Anderson Breedlove, former slaves-turned sharecroppers funding the Nonmilitary War. Partly become escape shrewd abusive brother-in-law, at mediocre 14 Traveller married Prophet McWilliams. When her bridegroom died donation 1887, Footer became a single materfamilias of two-year old daughter A’Lelia. In 1889, she reticent to Protest rally. Louis, Sioux, where she worked tempt a washwoman and fix. In 1905, Walker prudent to Denver, Colorado, where she wedded ad-man Physicist Joseph Footer, renamed herself “Madam C.J. Walker,” settle down with $1.25, launched bunch up own plan of plaits products presentday straighteners cart African Indweller women, “Madam Walker’s Queer Hair Grower.”
In 1910, Footer relocated address Indianapolis bear built a factory work her Traveller Manufacturing Company. An advocate walk up to black women’s economic sovereignty, she release training programs in say publicly “Walker System” for penetrate national cloth of accredited sales agents who attained healthy commissions. Ultimately, Framing employed 40,000 African Earth women celebrated men paddock the Significant, Central U.s., and interpretation Caribbean. She also supported the Nationwide Negro Genetic makeup Manuf
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Madam C.J. Walker
1867-1919
Who Was Madam C.J. Walker?
Madam C.J. Walker invented a line of African American hair products after suffering from a scalp ailment that resulted in her own hair loss. She promoted her products by traveling around the country giving lecture-demonstrations and eventually established Madame C.J. Walker Laboratories to manufacture cosmetics and train sales beauticians.
Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker
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Her business acumen led her to be one of the first American women to become a self-made millionaire. She was also known for her philanthropic endeavors, including a donation toward the construction of an Indianapolis YMCA in 1913. Walker's life was portrayed in the 2020 TV show Self Made, with Octavia Spencer portraying Walker.
Early Life
Walker was born Sarah Breedlove on December 23, 1867, on a cotton plantation near Delta, Louisiana. Her parents, Owen and Minerva, were enslaved and recently freed, and Sarah, who was their fifth child, was the first in her family to be free-born.
Minerva died in 1874 and Owen passed away the following year, both due to unknown causes, leaving Sarah an orphan at the age of seven. After her parents' passing, Sarah was sent to live with her sister, Louvinia, and he