Madam Walker Hair Products

When Madam C. J. Walker founded the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company in Denver, Colorado in the spring of 1906, she was continuing a centuries old tradition of African women and women of African descent adorning and beautifying themselves.

In 1888, as a young widow known as Sarah Breedlove McWilliams, she moved from Louisiana to St. Louis with her young daughter Lelia, who later would be known as A’Lelia Walker. She was first exposed to professional hair care practices by her older brothers, who had opened a barber shop during an era when Black men dominated the barbering trade in America. For a brief time, she was a sales agent for Annie Malone’s Poro Company. While working as a cook for a Denver pharmacist, she learned about other commercial hair care products and began experimenting with her own formulas for shampoos and ointments designed to heal scalp infections that caused baldness.

In 1906 after marrying newspaperman Charles Joseph Walker, she founded the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company and began marketing her products throughout the United States, the Caribbean and Central America. By the time she died in 1919, she had trained thousands of Walker sales agents and beauty culturists.

More than a century after Madam Walker introduced her groundbreaking hair care line, her name continues to inspire products for women of color. Today her legacy in the hair care industry continues with Society of Cosmetics Chemists fellowships for chemistry students, Personal Care Products Council Madam C. J. Walker awards, two National Historic Landmarks (the Madam Walker Legacy Center in Indianapolis and Villa Lewaro in Irvington, New York) and numerous events and initiatives.