Madam C.J. Walker
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Madam C.J. Walker

Born Dec 23, 1867 -

Delta, Louisiana

Developing hair products for black women.

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Personal Bio

African-AmericanInventos.org
Sarah Breedlove, who later became known as Madam C. J. Walker, was born into a former-slave family to parents Owen and Minerva Breedlove. She had one older sister, Louvenia and brothers Alexander, James, Solomon and Owen, Jr. Her parents had been slaves on Robert W. Burney's Madison Parish farm which was a battle-staging area during the Civil War for General Ulysses S. Grant and his Union troops. She became an orphan at age 7 when her parents died during an epidemic of yellow fever. To escape the epidemic and failing cotton crops, the ten year old Sarah and her sister moved across the river to Vicksburg in 1878 and obtained work as maids. At the age of fourteen, Sarah married Moses McWilliams to escape her sister's abusive husband. They had a daughter, Lelia (later known as A'Lelia Walker, a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance). When Lelia was only two years old, McWilliams died. Sarah's second marriage to John Davis August 11, 1894 failed and ended sometime in 1903. She married for the third time in January, 1906 to newspaper sales agent, Charles Joseph Walker; they divorced around 1910.
Fact: Walker grew up poor. But she became the first female African- American millionaire.

Cited: inventors.about.com