orig. Sarah Breedlove
born Dec. 23, 1867, near Delta, La., U.S.
died May 25, 1919, Irvington, N.Y.
U.S. businesswoman and philanthropist, the first African American female millionaire.
She was a widowed washerwoman with a daughter to support in 1905 when she developed a method for straightening curly hair. She founded the Madame C.J. Walker Manufacturing Co. to sell her treatment, and her door-to-door saleswomen became familiar figures in the black communities of the U.S. and the Caribbean. In 1910 she moved her company to Indianapolis, Ind. She augmented her earnings with shrewd real-estate investments, and she donated two-thirds of her fortune to charitable and educational institutions. Her daughter, A'Lelia Walker Kennedy, hosted salons where artists and cultural figures mingled during the Harlem Renaissance .