Madam C.J. Walker and the hair care company she built from nothing

Photo: Addison N. Scurlock / Adam Cuerden, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Sarah Breedlove was born in 1867 on a cotton plantation in Delta, Louisiana. She was the first child in her family born after emancipation. She was orphaned at 7, married at 14 and widowed at 20.

She spent years as a washerwoman in St. Louis. Like many women of the time, she suffered from scalp problems and hair loss. That led her to experiment with treatments of her own.

Building the company

In 1905 she moved to Denver and started selling her own scalp ointment. After marrying Charles Joseph Walker, she took the name Madam C.J. Walker. She traveled the South selling door to door and showing her “Walker System.”

In 1910 she moved the business to Indianapolis and built a factory, a laboratory and a beauty school. Her company trained thousands of Black women as sales agents. For many of them it was a way out of domestic work and into earning their own money.

Giving and activism

Walker gave money to the NAACP, the YMCA and Black schools, and she spoke out against lynching. In 1918 she moved into Villa Lewaro, a mansion in Irvington, New York.

She died in 1919 at 51. The Madam Walker Theatre in Indianapolis, finished in 1927, still stands and is a National Historic Landmark.