"GAINING MORE THAN HAIR" (Madame C.J. Walker)
by Michelle Delaney Grades 4-6
G'Morning children! My name is Mary Beth Fruglebee, but you can call me Mem. That's what all my friends call me. I was asked to come and share a story with you all today concerning someone important in history. Now I know that history can sometimes be a little on the boring side, so I have picked someone that I think is pretty interesting. You may not have even heard of her before. Are you ready? Let's begin!
The year is 1873 and Sarah Breedlowe, a young black girl, is only four years old. She lives with her parents, who are ex-slaves. One day Sarah wakes up to find that her parents have left her. She decides to make the best of her situation and soon she finds herself at the age of fourteen. That is when she decides to marry. Things seem to be going better for Sarah until her husband is killed by a lynch mob. Sarah now finds herself a widow at the young age of twenty. She then takes her young daughter Lelia and moves to St. Louis to earn a living by taking in laundry.
One day as Sarah was doing laundry she noticed that her hair was falling out. What a terrible thing to happen, Sarah thought to herself. She decided to experiment with different things to help with this problem. After trying many things, Sarah found a secret formula that helped keep her hair from falling out. She never revealed this formula, but the secret ingredient was later found out to be sulfur.
In 1905 Sarah moved to Denver and met and married a man named C. J. Walker. This man helped Sarah advertise and promote her new hair product, which she called Madame C.J. Walker's Hair Grower. It is sad to say that her marriage did not last, but her hair care product did! Sarah, or Madame C.J. Walker, as she is better known, continued to develop hair care products until she created the entire Walker System of hair care.
Madame C.J. Walker did not have much formal schooling like you kids have had, but she did have a talent for business and she set up her own manufacturing company. This company not only manufactured hair care products, but also expanded into an entire line of cosmetics for black women. This was an industry that had not previously been touched by other companies. Within just a few years, the Madame C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company in Indiana was a huge industry paying over $200,000 each year to its employees.
Madame C.J. Walker went from being a poor widow lady washing clothes to the president of a booming company. Although Madame C.J. Walker was the first female, black, self-made millionaire, she did not forget the hard work it took to get her there. She also did not forget where she came from. This was seen as she consistently supported those less fortunate than herself.
Even though Madame C.J. Walker's story is one of success, there were other black women all over America breaking forth in prominent positions. Madame C.J. Walker provided the inspiration that these black women needed to continue laboring toward success.
- List two events that happened in Madame C.J. Walker's life before she was 21 years old.
- What is a lynch mob?
- What was the secret ingredient that Madame C.J. Walker found, and what did it do?
- What kinds of people do you think Madame C.J. Walker would help today and why do you think she would help those people?
- Give three reasons why you think it is so amazing that Madame C.J. Walker became a self-made millionaire?
"GAINING MORE THAN HAIR"
by Michelle Delaney
I. Her background
A. Unfortunate events
- Orphaned
- Married/ Widowed
B. Occupation
- Laundry
- Hair product
II. The move
A. New marriage
- Advertise product
- Marriage ended
B. Established company
- Little schooling
- Black cosmetics
III. Conclusion
A. Success
- Money
- Fame
B. Example
1.Other black women
Suggested Props: old ragged dress, apron, clothes basket with old clothes, different bottles of shampoos and conditioners, different cosmetics
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
- She was orphaned. She was married. She was widowed. She moved with her young daughter. She began taking in laundry to earn money.
- A lynch mob is a group of white people that hated black people. They went about in the south hanging black people.
- The secret ingredient was sulfur and it helped grow her hair back.
- Answers will vary. Something along the lines of the homeless, less educated, different blacks that are uneducated, those that are sick.
- It is amazing because she was black. She was a woman and she was not educated. She also had a bad past and many people would not have kept going.
SOURCE: Haskins, Jim. Outward Dreams. New York: Walker and Company, 58-62.