Sarah WALKER

It only seems that all sorts of devices for hair - penny tricks. At the hair can make millions. With proven and Sarah Walker - a black American, appearing in the "Guinness Book of Records" as the first black female millionaire. Her face adorn today on U.S. postage stamps, and her biography are taught in American schools. Sarah has made his millions on hair straighteners.
Beginning of life for future millionaire, almost literary combination of all imaginable and unimaginable misery Negro. Her parents - Owen and Minerva Bridlavy, former slaves, died of yellow fever in 1874, when Sarah was six years old. After their death, Sarah and her older sister earned a textbook on the life of the sugarcane harvest. At age 14, Sarah married, as it should be, the huge black man much older than themselves - "just to have a roof over their heads". In 19 years gave birth to a daughter, and next year her husband died, the victim of lynching during the race riots in Greenwood. Then she worked as a laundress 18 years, trying to combine the washing with studying at night school and the education of daughters. In general, her life was bad enough. Well, in addition to all the misfortunes of Sarah, when she was thirty-six, began to rapidly balding. No drugs and polishing factory-dauber not help her, Sarah was on the verge of despair, but here, as is usually the case, a miracle happened, she had a dream. In which Sarah - so, in any case, she said - saw a recipe for "miracle hair restorer Sarah Breedlove". Apparently, it really is noticeably different from other "miracle hair restorer", with the help of Sarah, not only improved the lamentable state of their own hair, but was able to start business immediately became successful.

. She settled in Denver, where he spread panacea
. And here she is lucky the second time: in 1906, she married Charles Walker, he worked in the newspaper and helped his wife in advertising its potions. And then it dawned on me really, and she came up with what became her all America, - a means for straightening curly black hair. "Walker System" - a means to soften the hair complete with a special steel comb for straightening - gave black women the opportunity to make yourself a hairdo "white" sample. Now, not only white women to head up, but black - to develop. So - look "equal".
At first, Sarah Walker distributed his own way - avoiding black neighborhoods. And when the targeted marketing has proved its efficiency and domestic production has necessitated the expansion, it created a network of agents. Precisely, agentsh: product was probably female. Such work for black women was a blessing - as a rule, before that they worked only dishwashers, laundresses and housekeepers. And then they open new opportunities. It was sold not only and not the product - sold a whole new philosophy of life: not just hair care, and setting up on cleanliness and charm, to improve the social image of the entire female half of the black race. It is valuable and that had, . Walker means that at any stage of production and distribution does not go beyond this widely acknowledged as a dependent community - from the CEO to the consumer, . director of the college until the last student had a colored lady,
.

All this worked to the popularity of the company, and the company grew rapidly Walker. In 1910 she translated Denver office in Indianapolis, has built a laboratory, factory, a new school of cosmetology. In the heyday - from 1911 to 1919 - her company earned $ 100 thousand. per year, produced a full line of hair restorer and care for healthy scalp, face and body, lipsticks, balms from the temples of alopecia, cosmetic equipment. Wholesale distributors have worked in New York and Philadelphia, expanding franchise network. In this case the factory Walker worked a total of 15 workers and several thousand agents conducted operations in the U.S. and abroad - were not simply kommivoyazhershami, but stylists and consultants, a culture of grooming. This triumph of the company held in Paris, where Josephine Baker, the most popular singer, the late 10 th-early 20-ies of this century, took the "Walker System". And with that, just really started its victorious march of the world. Sarah Walker's husband could not stand the test a success of his wife, and they divorced in 1912. Then she, still distinctly felt the air of freedom, moved to New York, in Harlem, and began construction of a model of compulsory millionaire villas - of course, in the style of the Italian Renaissance. Plot in 4.5 acres she has chosen not by chance: the house had to be clearly visible from the busy highway, providing a model of how Walker said the water from the interview, which might achieve her race and gender. The marble steps and swimming pool, a magnificent body and gold-plated piano, painted ceilings and chandeliers handmade Italian garden - all the trappings of personal wealth were presented in full in the house Sarah Walker.

. In 1916, "Walker agents" were united in the National Association of Cosmetologists and voluntary associations of agents, Madame Walker, who in 1917 were converted into the Union Cosmetologists (Madam P
. J. Walker Hair Culturists Union). The membership fee was 25 cents per month, in the case of death of the beneficiary Union, his family paid $ 50. However, local union organizations engaged in equally and business, and raising awareness, and charity
Sarah herself in the last period of life, too much time was devoted to enlightenment and charity. It was she who in 1915 filed a lawsuit against racial discrimination in theaters in Indianapolis. It was she who in 1917 insisted that the Voluntary Association announced lynch a federal crime. She spoke against segregation in Washington before President Woodrow Wilson. It was the largest in favor of Donor's National Association for Advancement of Colored People, . provided financial assistance to nurseries and orphanages, . churches and schools in Indianapolis, . St. Louis, . Florida, . NC, . Georgia, . founded the Academy for girls in West Africa,
. I opened the door to all their relatives in the business she created.