“Sarah Breedlove Walker originally Sarah Breedlove: (1867-1919) U.S. businesswoman and philanthropist, the first black female millionaire in the U.S. Born near Delta, Louisiana, she was a widowed washerwoman with a daughter to support in 1905 when she developed a method for straightening curly hair. She founded the Madame C.J. Walker Manufacturing Co. to sell her treatment, and her door-to-door saleswomen became familiar figures in the black communities in the U.S. and the Caribbean. In 1910 she moved her company to Indianapolis. She augmented her earnings with shrewd real-estate investments, and she donated two-thirds of her fortune to charitable and educational institutions. Her daughter, A’lelia Walker Kennedy, hosted salons where artists and cultural figures mingled during the Harlem Renaissance.”
Excerpted/Adapted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
Mark's Text Terminal 