Born Sarah Breedlove on December 23, 1867 on a Louisiana plantation,Walker transformed herself from an uneducated farm worker of the twentieth century's most successful, self-made women entrepreneurs. Orphaned at age seven, she often said, "I got my start by giving myself a start." She and her older sister, Louvenia, survived by working in the cotton fields of Vicksburg, Mississippi. At 14, she married Moses McWilliams to escape abuse from her cruel brother-in-law, Jesse Powell.
During the 1890s, Sarah began to suffer from a scalp ailment that caused her to lose most of her hair. She experimented with many homemade remedies and store-bought products, including those made by Annie Malone, another black woman entrepreneur. In 1905 Sarah moved to Denver as a sales agent for Malone, then married her third husband, Charles Joseph Walker, a St. Louis newspaperman. After changing her name to "Madam" C. J. Walker, she founded her own business and began selling Madam Walker's......
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Approximate Word Count: 562
Approximate Pages: 3 (260 words per double-spaced page) |