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Business
Women Thorough History
Every once in a while I will touch on a
women who changed the face of business for women as we know it today. Today we will talk about Madame C. J.
Walker.
Ok, you are probably asking WHO is that and
what does she have to do with me and my business. Well, let me tell you about this interesting lady and the
contributions she made.
A black woman, C. J. Walker was born to
slaves in 1867, in Louisiana. While
Sarah was just a child, both parents died leaving her to fend for herself. After moving in with her sister, she
suffered abuse at the hands of her brother in law, and after suffering for some
time, at the age of 14, she ran off and got married, only to be struck by
tragedy again. Two years after
marrying, her husband was murdered by a lynch mob.
Sarah and her young daughter then moved to
St. Louis, Missouri, where she found work as a cook and housecleaner. After all the tragedies she had suffered
during her short lifetime, her hair began falling out. After trying the few available products at
that time to no avail, she had a dream in which she believed that she got a new
formula for hair growth for black people. She tried this concoction and her hair grew back more than before!
After showing this product to several
people, she decided to start a business, selling her product to black
women. In 1905, she moved to Denver,
Colorado to live with her sister-in-law after the untimely death of her
brother. While still working as a cook,
she launched her part time business. While in Denver, she met C.J. Walker, a newspaperman, who assisted her
business by placing ads for her in many black newspapers all throughout the
country. As her company grew, her
daughter (by this time a recent college graduate, assisted her in running the
company). Sarah divorced her husband in
order to devote more time to her business. She travelled in order to promote her business while her daughter ran
the company (remember this was 1906). Sarah also sought to bring more women into her business, to empower them
and also give them a way to rise above a male dominated society.
In 1908, Sarah began Lelia College, in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania which trained women to sell her products door to door
and by 1910, she has more than 1,000 sales people working for her. Later that year, she moved her headquarters
to Indianapolis, Indiana, where her company grew beyond expectation. By 1914, she was a woman, who only 9 scant
years before had $2.00 to her name and was now worth over a million
dollars! The products which she sold
ranged from face creams to hair products.
After spending a childhood into early
adulthood in poverty, she had grown to be a very wealthy woman and was able to
purchase a mansion along the Hudson River in New York. When she died in 1919, she was mourned by
the black community as an industry pioneer and for many woman, black and white,
she was an role model and inspiration.
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