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Sarah Breedlove, later Madam C.J. Walker, worked as a laundress before building an Indianapolis hair-care company that made her a millionaire
Sarah Breedlove built a hair-care business from her experience as a laundress, eventually becoming one of America's wealthiest Black businesswomen.
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Sarah Breedlove spent many years washing clothes to make ends meet for herself and her daughter. Under the name Madam C.J. Walker, she built her hair-care products business with clients across the country. According to the National Park Service, she turned her fight against hair loss into a business in Indianapolis.
Breedlove was born in December 1867 in Delta, Louisiana, to parents who had been enslaved sharecroppers. Breedlove lost her parents during childhood and went to stay with her elder sister. She worked as a washerwoman in Vicksburg, Mississippi. She married Moses Williams in her early teens and had her first daughter at 17. She married again after her first husband died in 1887 and moved to St. Louis, Missouri.
She earned her living doing laundry for about 17 years. In her thirties, she started suffering hair loss and found the products already available ineffective. She said a dream led her to the formula for her remedy. She tried her product on herself and her friends and found that it was worth selling.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture notes that Breedlove enrolled at Annie Turnbo Malone's Poro College in St. Louis and later became an agent for the Poro Company. She sold Malone's hair and scalp products before developing her own line, drawing on her personal experiences with hair loss and the training she received at the college.
Creating a hair-care business in the US
Breedlove moved to Denver in 1905 with savings of $1.50. She worked as a cook and did laundry two days a week for rent. Her remaining time was spent preparing hair products that she would sell door to door. In 1906, Breedlove married Charles Joseph Walker, a newspaper advertising salesman, and adopted the name Madam C.J. Walker, which she believed would make her products more appealing.
She reinvested the profits in ingredients and newspaper advertising. Her husband assisted her with promotion and mail orders, but there was a lot of disagreement between them about the business, and they later separated. Walker appointed her daughter as a mail-order agent while she traveled for promotion of the products. In 1908, Walker moved to Pittsburgh to start a school for the Walker System of Hair Culture called Lelia College. She recruited hairdressers and sales representatives.
The National Park Service (NPS) reports that Walker's agents were trained to develop home beauty businesses, maintain records, and serve their customers. Walker selected Indianapolis as the base of her operations in February 1910 because its railway facilities made it easier to ship mail orders. She established a factory, a salon, and a training school in the city. Her business eventually expanded to 5,000 agents across the country and generated $7,000 in weekly revenue.
In 1913, Walker opened a base in Harlem, New York, which included living quarters, a salon, and a school for salon operators. Walker permanently moved to Harlem in 1916, while the Indianapolis operations continued under attorney and general manager F.B. Ransom and factory forewoman Alice Kelly.
Guinness World Records recognizes Walker as the first self-made millionairess, estimating that her net worth exceeded $1 million when she died on May 25, 1919, at the age of 51. However, Walker did not consider herself to be a millionaire. The estimate is based on her substantial real estate holdings and controlling interest in a company generating more than $500,000 annually.
Business legacy for future generations
The ambitions of Walker went further than just building her own company. After Walker was discriminated against when an Indianapolis theater charged her a higher admission price than white patrons, she decided to construct a building to house her business and help African Americans in Indianapolis.
Walker had planned the building before she died in 1919. Her daughter, A'Lelia Walker, oversaw its completion in 1927. The four-story Walker Building, decorated with brightly colored African masks around its doorways, served as the headquarters of Walker's company. The Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company employed approximately 3,000 African American men and women to manufacture and sell hair-care products and cosmetics.
