Madam C. J. Walker
Madam C. J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove in Delta, Louisiana on December 23, 1867. Her prospects for success were nil.
Sarah Breedlove was born in this Delta, LA cabin in 1867
Yet, by the time she died in May 1919 at Villa Lewaro–her Irvington-on-Hudson, New York mansion–she had transformed herself into a millionaire entrepreneur, philanthropist, patron of the arts and political activist.
Madam Walker died at Villa Lewaro in May 1919.
To learn more about Walker’s life, visit the Madam Walker Family Archives’s Birthday Wish for Madam Walker
- Mae Walker’s headdress was inspired by the recently opened King Tut tomb
© Whenever I see my grandmother Mae’s 1923 wedding photographs, I can’t help but marvel at the elegance and extravagance. I also can’t resist searching her eyes for clues to the drama I now know was roiling just behind the scrim of the carefully choreographed scenes.
Newspaper headlines from the Pittsburgh Courier –“Heiress Weds ‘Mid Pomp-Splendor”—to the New York World—“Thousands Attend Wedding of Negro Heiress in Harlem”—tell only part of the story.
Mae Walker's 1923 wedding was the social event of the season (aleliabundles.com)
For Harlem’s social event of the season and of the year, there were parties galore, guests from three continents and a groom from a prominent family. There also was a major glitch: the bride was in love with someone else. (more…)
Madam Walker's Everyday Silver (Madam Walker Family Archives/A'Lelia Bundles)
One of my earliest memories of my great-great-grandmother’s existence is seeing her monogram on the silverware we used everyday. “CJW” for “C. J. Walker,” the name Sarah Breedlove McWilliams adopted after marrying her third husband, Charles Joseph Walker.
I grew up in Indianapolis in a home surrounded by items that had belonged to Madam Walker–the early twentieth century hair care entrepreneur and philanthropist–and her daughter, A’Lelia Walker, who was to become an icon of the Harlem Renaissance. And ofcourse with a name like “A’Lelia,” there was an obvious connection since both my mother and I are named for Madam Walker’s daughter.
Madam Walker's China (Madam Walker Family Archives/A'Lelia Bundles)
The china that we used on special occasions had been purchased by Madam Walker. The Chickering baby grand piano on which I learned to read music, had been in A’Lelia Walker’s 136th Street Harlem townhouse and Edgecombe Avenue pied-a-terre. And, yet, as a child I was never made to feel as if Madam Walker were the center of my universe or that I had any obligation to carry on or live up to a legacy. (more…)
On August 31, 1917, Madam C. J. Walker hosted the first national convention of her Walker “beauty culturists” at Philadelphia’s Union Baptist Church, where a young contralto named Marian Anderson was just beginning to be noticed. More than 200 women from all over the United States gathered to learn about sales, marketing and management at what was one of the earliest professonal gatherings of American women entrepreneurs.
Walker–who founded her Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company during the spring of 1906 in Denver after marrying her third husband, Charles Joseph “C.J.” Walker, earlier that year–had first begun selling hair care products in St. 
Louis (more…)
Eighty years ago this month on August 17, 1931–after a lovely day at the beach celebrating a friend’s birthday– A’Lelia Walker, my great-grandmother and namesake, died in Long Branch, New Jersey. She and six pals from Harlem had enjoyed the sea breezes and dined on lobster and chocolate cake earlier that day. Prohibition notwithstanding, they’d toasted each other with champagne. And, there had been lots and lots of laughter.
Just as the parties she hosted at her salon, The Dark Tower, and in her mansion, Villa Lewaro, had been grand, so was her funeral. Here’s my description from On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker, my biography of A’Lelia Walker’s mother, entreprenuer Madam C. J. Walker.
“More than 11,000 people filed through Howell’s Funeral Home [on Seventh Avenue in Harlem] the night before the services…In the open casket, A’Lelia wore a gown of gold lace and tulle over lavendar satin with
a pale green velvet sash draped around her body. Her feet were covered in apple-green satin slippers. Around her neck were (more…)
Another 100 degree day! Crazy me has the air conditioning off, the windows open and the ceiling fan on high speed. I think it’s my way of communing with the folks I’m writing about because heaven knows it was HOT in A’Lelia Walker’s un-air conditioned 136th Street townhouse this time of year in 1915. And she did NOT like the heat!
Faith Ringgold's "The Sunflowers Quilting Bee at Arles" 1991
A few days ago while writing a chapter about A’LW’s friends, I came across a reference to someone named Ringgold. Couldn’t help but think of artist and quilter, Faith Ringgold, whose quilt “The Sunflowers Quilting Bee at Arles,” has long been one of my favorite pieces of artwork with my great-great-grandmother–and A’Lelia Walker’s mother– Madam C. J. Walker.
The abundance of sunflowers made me think of a letter Walker had written to her attorney, F. B. Ransom, in 1918 a few months after she had moved into her Irvington-on-Hudson, New York mansion, Villa Lewaro, and about how (more…)
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