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Madame C.J. Walker: A Self-Made Success
2/19/2007
by Lori Rose Rupert
 Sarah Breedlove, later known as Madame C.J. Walker, was often heard saying, “I got my start by giving myself a start.” Walker held steadfast to her words and proved them in a consistent manner throughout the duration of her life. From being an uneducated, eventually orphaned, daughter of former slaves to a revolutionist for African American women, Walker followed the rags to riches path, eventually opening her own school and her own factory.. Later she held one of the first national meetings of businesswomen in the country, The Madame C.J. Walker Hair Culturists Union of America convention.
Walker’s endeavors started after she was orphaned at the age of 7. In order to survive, Walker and her older sister worked as laborers in the cotton fields of Mississippi. Walker married Moses McWilliams at the age of 14 and gave birth to her daughter Lelia. Two years after Lelia’s birth McWilliams died, leaving behind both a widow and an infant daughter. Again, she rose against adversity. Walker moved to St. Louis and co-partnered with her brothers who were established barbers. The small amount she made, about $1.50 daily, was saved and used to provide her daughter with an education.
Several years later Walker faced another challenge when she began suffering from a scalp ailment and lost most of her hair. Rather than become weak, Walker proved her strength and determination another time, experimenting with various remedies and homemade products and eventually establishing her own business and hair growth product: Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower. Walker claimed the scalp healing and conditioning formula had been revealed to her while she slept. After spending a little over a year traveling on behalf of her product, Walker moved temporarily to Pittsburgh. Here she founded Lelia College and began to train her own line of “hair culturists”. Walker continued to build her entrepreneurial image when settling in Indianapolis in 1910 and building a factory, a hair and manicure salon and a second school. Eventually, her products formed the basis of a national corporation that at one point employed over 3000 people. Walker’s perseverance, along with her strategizing, led to her label as the first-known African American, woman, self-made millionaire.
Walker moved to New York 6 years later. She left the Madame C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company to her trusted factory forelady, and former school teacher, Alice Kelly. Walker once stated, “There is no royal flower-strewn path to success, and if there is, I have not found it for if I have accomplished anything in life it is because I have been willing to work hard.” Through ambition, strength and perseverance Walker proved the weight of her words, as the final picture revealed her as a self-made American businesswoman and a pioneer.
Sources:
A’lelia Bundles. “Madame C.J. Walker-A short biography.” 2006. http://www.madamecjwalker.com
Bellis, Mary. “Madame C.J. Walker.”About:Inventors. http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blwalker.htm
Women in History. Madam C. J. Walker biography. Lakewood Public Library. http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/walk-mad.htm.
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