Sarah Breedlove was born in Louisiana in 1867 to parents who had been enslaved, was orphaned by age seven, and was picking cotton alongside her sister soon after. She married at 14 and was widowed with a two-year-old daughter by 20, supporting herself and her child for years as a washerwoman earning roughly $1.50 a day.
In the 1890s, a scalp condition caused Breedlove to lose much of her hair, pushing her to experiment with home remedies and eventually develop her own line of hair-care products for Black women, sold under the name Madam C.J. Walker. She built the business door to door and through advertisements in Black newspapers, training a national sales force of Black women along the way.
By the time of her death in 1919, Walker's company had made her one of the wealthiest Black women in the country and, according to Guinness World Records, the first American woman to become a self-made millionaire without inheriting or marrying into her fortune. She gave generously to Black colleges, the NAACP, and other charitable causes throughout her life.
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