Supporting Question
Why does Madam C.J. Walker’s story matter?
For the formative performance task, use the sources to answer the following questions:
What are the important events in this person’s life? What emotions did this person experience throughout their life?
What did this person invent? What other inventions have been done in this area?
What do we know about the biases this person faced and how they responded? How did their responses compare to other people of their time?
How much—if it all—did the person’s life change after their inventions? Did they receive credit for their invention? Did they profit from it?
In what ways did this person address social issues of their day?
Featured Sources
Source A
Image of Madam C.J. Walker’s Hair Tin, 1925
Sarah Breedlove, better known as Madam C.J. Walker, was one of two women (Annie Malone being the other) who revolutionized the hair care and cosmetics industry for African American women in the early 20th century. The daughter of former slaves, Walker transformed herself from an uneducated farm laborer and washerwoman into one of the 20th century’s most successful, self-made women entrepreneurs.
During the 1890s, Walker began to suffer from a scalp ailment that caused her to lose some of her hair. She experimented with many homemade remedies and store-bought products before she founded her own business in the early 1900s and began selling “Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower,” a scalp conditioning and healing formula, which she claimed had been revealed to her in a dream. Walker took her Wonderful Hair Grower across the country, selling it, setting up shops and training women in her hair-care methods.
By 1907, the washerwoman who had earned $300 a year was earning $300 a month. When she died of kidney disease in 1919, her net worth of $600,000 made her one of the richest businesswomen in America.
Source B
Madam C.J. Walker’s Great-Great-Granddaughter Shares Little Told Story of Activism, The Root, 2020
In 2020, Netflix released a 4-episode miniseries about the life of Madam C.J. Walker titled “Self Made” that starred Octavia Spencer. In this video, Walker’s great-great-grandaughter talks promotes the show by telling more about Walker’s life.
Source C
“Madam C.J. Walker’s Philanthropy,” Tyrone McKinley Freeman (biographer), 2018
What sort of causes and institutions did Madam C. J. Walker support and why?
Before she became famous, Sarah Breedlove, aka Madam C. J. Walker, was an orphan, child laborer, teenaged wife and mother, young widow, and homeless migrant. She knew firsthand the struggles of being poor, Black, and female in the emerging Jim Crow South. Her philanthropic giving was focused on racial uplift, which meant helping African Americans overcome Jim Crow and achieve full citizenship. She gave money to local, regional, national, and international organizations that were typically founded by or focused on serving African Americans.
Her racial-uplift giving was primarily directed toward Black education and social services. She gave to Black colleges and secondary schools like Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute, the Palmer Memorial Institute in North Carolina, and the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute in Florida, because Jim Crow laws denied her an education during her childhood in Louisiana and Mississippi.
For social services, she gave to organizations such as the Flanner Settlement House in Indianapolis, the Alpha Home elder-care facility in Indianapolis, the St. Louis Colored Orphans' Home, the St. Paul's AME Mite Missionary Society in St. Louis, and to the international and colored branches of the YMCA. These organizations were on the ground responding to the basic needs of African Americans related to discrimination, food, healthcare, housing, daycare, and community development.
Some of these organizations, and others she supported, were run by women leaders, like Mary McLeod Bethune and Charlotte Hawkins Brown—which was important to Walker, too, as they were fellow race women and friends. To help the NAACP fight lynching, Walker also made important direct and estate gifts, which the organization later credited with helping it to survive the Great Depression.
Madam C.J. Walker stands with Booker T. Washington (to her left) at the dedication of the Senate Avenue YMCA. Madam Walker donated $1,000 to the project and worked tirelessly to bring in more donations for the project. While she is known for her business ambitions, she was also devoted to helping those less fortunate. The other gentlemen in the picture, from left to right, are Indianapolis Freeman publisher George Knox, Walker Company attorney F.B. Ransom, Indianapolis World publisher A.E. Manning, Dr. Joseph H. Ward, Louisville YMCA secretary R.W. Bullock and Senate Avenue YMCA secretary Thomas Taylor.