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SPEAKER_02: Oh hey, I'm Maddie Foley, one of the producers here at Wonder Media Network. The show you are listening to right now, Encyclopedia Wamanica, is one of my favorite creative resources. We tell so many stories of real women doing these crazy, incredible things. Stories that are begging to be featured in illustrations, comics, songs, maybe some fan fiction. And you can help us keep telling these stories by joining our new membership program over at glow.fm slash Wamanica. See you there.
SPEAKER_07: Hair is beauty. Hair is power. Damn, Sarah, how big you wanna be? Big as Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller put together.
SPEAKER_01: I'm a ruler, yeah, yeah. Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Encyclopedia Wamanica. All May, we've been talking about mavericks and legends, highlighting women who went against prescribed gender norms to make a name for themselves, for better or for worse. Some of these women did incredible things for society and should be celebrated. Others had a big impact that wasn't quite so rosy. The collection of women we featured this month is complex and nuanced, much like all women are. Our final woman this month was a legendary entrepreneur. She may have been the first black woman to be a millionaire in the United States. Meet Madam C.J. Walker. Madam C.J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove on December 23rd, 1867. She grew up on a plantation in Delta, Louisiana, along with her five siblings. Her parents were former slaves who turned to sharecropping after the Civil War. By the time Sarah was seven, both of her parents had passed away. Sarah moved in with her sister, Louvina, and worked with her in the cotton fields. When she was 14 years old, Sarah married Moses McWilliams, partially to escape her abusive brother-in-law. After a few years of marriage, the couple had a daughter named Layla. Soon thereafter, Moses passed away, leaving Sarah to raise their child alone. In 1889, Sarah sought to escape poverty by moving to St. Louis, Missouri, to join her four brothers, who all worked as barbers. She started out making a living by cooking and doing laundry. In St. Louis, Sarah was exposed to a strong, successful black community through the African Methodist Episcopal Church. That said, it was extremely difficult to make a living as a black woman in the 1890s. Sarah had another short-lived marriage that ended in divorce. She faced financial struggles and physical difficulties from her years of hard labor. In 1904, Sarah's life took a turn for the better. She started working as a sales agent for Annie Turnbo Malone's hair product, the Great Wonderful Hair Grower. After a year, she moved to Denver, Colorado, and married Charles Joseph Walker, who worked in advertising. Sarah renamed herself Madam C.J. Walker and started her own line of hair products specifically for African American women. She called it Madam Walker's Wonderful Hair Grower. Madam C.J. started her line with just $1.25 of initial investment. Her husband helped with advertising and setting up a mail-in-order system before the couple divorced in 1910. Madam C.J. then moved to Indianapolis and built a factory for Walker Manufacturing Company. The burgeoning African American hair-care industry faced criticism from some community leaders, including activist Booker T. Washington. He feared that hair straighteners, along with skin-bleaching creams, would normalize harmful, white-centric standards of beauty. Perhaps as a marketing tactic, Madam C.J. specifically advertised that the ingredients of her product were African in origin. It's clear that Madam C.J. was piggybacking off of Annie Turnbull Malone's hair-product line. Some claim that Annie Turnbull Malone was actually the first Black woman millionaire, not Madam C.J. No matter who reached that milestone first, Madam C.J. is notable for her incredible advertising skills and her ability to sell her hair product as the ultimate lifestyle. Madam C.J. used her success to support her community. She employed 40,000 Black people throughout the United States, Central America, and the Caribbean. She opened training programs for her network of Black women sales agents, who also learned healthy commission rates. In 1917, Madam C.J. also founded the National Negro Cosmetics Manufacturers Association. Madam C.J.'s wealth grew along with her philanthropy and activism. She donated to the YMCA, covered tuition for several African-American students at Tuskegee Institute, donated $5,000 to the NAACP, and spoke out against lynching. Before Madam C.J. passed away, her product sales topped $500,000, and her net worth exceeded $1 million. Madam C.J. Walker passed away from kidney failure on May 25, 1919. Right before she died, she revised her will to ensure two-thirds of future net profits would go to charity. Like many of the women this month, Madam C.J. Walker has a complicated legacy. That said, she's worth remembering for her determination, talent, and philanthropy. This is the final episode of our Mavericks and Legends Month. On Monday, we'll kick off June with the full month of our favorite episodes from the past year. For more on why we're doing what we're doing, check out our newsletter, Womanaka Weekly. You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram at encyclopediawomanaka, and you can follow me directly on Twitter at Jenny M. Kaplan. Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator. And special thanks to all the Womaniacs out there. To become a Womaniac yourself, go to glow.fm slash womanaka. It means a lot to us. Talk to you on Monday.
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