UNIT:
Grades K-2

Madam C.J. Walker is known as being America’s first self-made female millionaire. She was born Sarah Breedlove in 1867 and experienced many challenges as a child and teenager. As a young woman, after she began losing her hair, she began using hair care products that helped her hair grow back. She was motivated to launch her own hair care empire under the name of Madam C.J. Walker, which not only made her a millionaire, but also employed thousands of Black women who sold her products. Madam C.J. Walker became a philanthropist and an activist who motivated her saleswomen (or “agents”) to contribute to charities and social justice causes. Toward the end of her life, she built a mansion and died in 1919. The author’s point of view of Walker is that she was a well-respected, admired businesswoman who had ambition and cared for others.