Madam C.J. Walker

November 9, 2020
Ball (To Live an Antislavery Life), a professor of history and Black studies at Occidental College, delivers a concise and revealing biography of hair- and skin-care entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker (1867–1919). Born Sarah Breedlove to former slaves in a one-room cabin on a Louisiana plantation, Walker moved in 1887 or 1888 to St. Louis, where her brothers were barbers. After working as a sales agent for Mrs. Annie Pope’s Wonderful Hair Grower, she moved to Denver in 1905 and developed her own line of hair-care products. Walker traveled across the country to promote her business and franchise beauty schools and salons, and by 1911 had 950 agents selling her products nationwide. She also “engag in an array of community-building, philanthropic, and civil rights endeavors,” including the NAACP’s antilynching crusade. By the time of her death, she was worth $8.7 million in today’s money, with a mansion in Westchester County, N.Y., where her neighbors included John D. Rockefeller. Ball persuasively links Walker’s self-reinvention as a sophisticated entrepreneur to the transformation of formerly agrarian Black Southerners into a style-conscious and politically active urban Black working class. This brisk and informative account serves as a worthy introduction to a trailblazing businesswoman and social justice advocate. (Jan.)Correction: An earlier version of this review misstated where the author teaches.

December 1, 2020
This is an exhaustively detailed account of the life of Madam C.J. Walker, an early twentieth-century self-made entrepreneur who built an international conglomerate by selling beauty and hair-care products specifically designed for African American women. In the early 1900s, Walker celebrated natural beauty during a time when other companies were pushing skin lighteners and straightening lotions. Like her contemporaries Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden, Walker shrouded her early life in mystery, but author Ball (To Live an Antislavery Life, 2012) combines the few known facts with political and social history to create a credible backstory. Once Walker adopts her professional moniker in her mid-thirties, Ball relies on a profusion of testimonials, company advertisements, media releases, and interviews that document her business acumen, storied philanthropy, and copious work for racial uplift. Ball parallels Walker's life with national events, demonstrating how Walker's efforts supported young women of color as they explored their expanding options. An epilogue explores the evolution of Walker's legacy. The daughter of formerly enslaved people, Walker described her life as a journey ""from the wash tub . . . to the boardroom."" This addition to the Library of African American Biography tells the story of this remarkable woman.Women in Focus: The 19th in 2020

COPYRIGHT(2020) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.