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Books on the Walkers
Ben Neihart.
Rough Amusements: The True Story of A'Lelia Walker, Patroness of the Harlem
Renaissance's Down-Low Culture. 2003
Tananarive Due.
The Black Rose: The Dramatic Story of Madam C.J. Walker, America's First Black
Female Millionaire. 2001
A'Lelia Bundles.
On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker. 2002
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Madame C. J. Walker
America's First Female Millionaire
Businesswoman
Sarah Breedlove Walker (1867-1919), known as Madam C. J. Walker, was
America's first American women to
become a millionaire, directing and managing the largest business owned by an African
American in her day. She made a prosperous business out of selling her
self-made hair care products for African American women.
Born December 23, 1867,Walker was the daughter of former slaves and
sharecroppers in Delta, Louisiana.
Orphaned at the age of six, she was raised by an older sister and thus
received very little formal education, but began supporting herself by the age of
ten. At 14 she married Moses
McWilliams and in 1885 had her daughter. A'Lelia. In 1887 her husband died;
a widow with a daughter, she moved to
St. Louis, Missouri, where she had relatives. There she worked as a hotel
washerwoman for 18 years, earning
a dollar and a half a day.
Around 1904 she developed the "Walker
Method" of hair care. In 1906 Walker moved to Denver, Colorado, and married
newspaperman Charles Joseph Walker. After developing
scalp treatments and hair straighteners, Madam Walker's line of products
eventually included hair
growing tonic, strengtheners, toiletries, fragrances, and facial treatments.
By 1917, the Walker Manufacturing Company was the largest African
American-owned business in the United States employing about 3,000 workers. She died in New York City on May 25, 1919.
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Ida
B. Wells (1862-1931) on Madame C. J
Walker: "I was indeed proud to see what a few short years of success had done for a
woman who had been without education and training. Her beautiful home on the
Hudson was completed the next year, when Madam took possession, surrounded by
prominent people from all over the country. It is a great pity to have to
remember that she was permitted to enjoy its splendors less than a year after
she moved in. Seven months from the day in which its doors were opened, they
laid her away in her grave. The life had been too strenuous and the burden had
become too heavy. |
Ida
B. Wells was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi a slave, six months
before the Emancipation Proclamation was introduced. Educated in a freedmen's
school, Ida became an avid reader and a skilled writer.
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Ida B. Wells: a Passion for
Justice
Documents the dramatic life
and turbulent times of the pioneering African American journalist, activist,
suffragist and anti-lynching crusader of the post-Reconstruction period.
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update 11 July 2008 |
