From the world of Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls comes a story based on the life of Madam C.J. Walker, America’s first female self-made millionaire. Sarah is the first person in her family who wasn’t born into slavery in Delta, Louisiana. But being free doesn’t mean that Sarah doesn’t have to work. She cooks, she cleans, she picks cotton, she does laundry, and she babysits. And when she works, she wraps up her hair. One day, Sarah’s hair starts to fall out! It’s itchy, crunchy, patchy, and won’t grow. Instead of giving up, Sarah searches for the right products. And then she invents something better than any shampoo or hair oil she’s used before. Her hair grows and grows! That’s when she decides to rebrand herself as “Madam C. J. Walker,” and begins her business empire. Madam C. J. Walker Builds a Business is the story of a leader in the hair care industry, but it’s also an inspiring tale about the importance of empowering women to become economically independent. This historical fiction chapter book includes additional text on Madam C. J. Walker’s lasting legacy, as well as educational activities designed to encourage entrepreneurship. About the Rebel Girls Chapter Book Series Meet extraordinary real-life heroines in the Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls chapter book series! Introducing stories based on the lives of extraordinary women in global history, each stunningly designed chapter book features beautiful illustrations from a female artist as well as bonus activities in the backmatter to encourage kids to explore the various fields in which each of these women thrived. The perfect gift to inspire any young reader!

Soon to be a Netflix series starring Octavia Spencer, On Her Own Ground is the first full-scale biography of “one of the great success stories of American history” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), Madam C.J. Walker—the legendary African American entrepreneur and philanthropist—by her great-great-granddaughter, A’Lelia Bundles. The daughter of formerly enslaved parents, Sarah Breedlove—who would become known as Madam C. J. Walker—was orphaned at seven, married at fourteen, and widowed at twenty. She spent the better part of the next two decades laboring as a washerwoman for $1.50 a week. Then—with the discovery of a revolutionary hair care formula for black women—everything changed. By her death in 1919, Walker managed to overcome astonishing odds: building a storied beauty empire from the ground up, amassing wealth unprecedented among black women, and devoting her life to philanthropy and social activism. Along the way, she formed friendships with great early-twentieth-century political figures such as Ida B. Wells, Mary McLeod Bethune, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Booker T. Washington.

Madam C. J. Walker was beloved within her community for her philanthropy and establishing the local YMCA, but she couldn't have done that if she wasn't the first female self-made millionaire and one of the most successful African American business owners ever. Born Sarah Breedlove, she was the first person born free in her family. She married Charles Joseph Walker and became known as Madam C. J. Walker, the name she would later use on her haircare products. After talking with her brothers, who were barbers, she realized that African American women didn't know how to properly care for their hair. This inspired her to start her own line of hair care products to do things like reduce dandruff, grow longer hair, smooth hair, or prevent baldness. Her company employed thousands of door-to-door saleswomen from all over the United States and the Caribbean. She supported the African American community by establishing the first YMCA in Indianapolis, funding scholarships for the Tuckegee Institute, and becoming a patron of the Harlem renaissance.

"[An] exhaustively detailed account of the life of Madam C.J. Walker." Booklist, Starred Review Madam C. J. Walker—reputed to be America’s first self-made woman millionaire—has long been celebrated for her rags-to-riches story. Born to former slaves in the Louisiana Delta in the aftermath of the Civil War, married at fourteen, and widowed at twenty, Walker spent the first decades of her life as a laundress, laboring in conditions that paralleled the lives of countless poor and working-class African American women. By the time of her death in 1919, however, Walker had refashioned herself into one of the most famous African American figures in the nation: the owner and president of a hair-care empire and a philanthropist wealthy enough to own a country estate near the Rockefellers in the prestigious New York town of Irvington-on-Hudson. In this biography, Erica Ball places this remarkable and largely forgotten life story in the context of Walker’s times. Ball analyzes Walker’s remarkable acts of self-fashioning, and explores the ways that Walker (and the Walker brand) enabled a new generation of African Americans to bridge the gap between a nineteenth-century agrarian past and a twentieth-century future as urban-dwelling consumers.

Madam C.J. Walker, the first woman - black or white - to become a self-made millionaire, started out as a laundress with few prospects. Originally named Sarah Breedlove, she was the first in her formerly enslaved family to be born free. Poor for most of her life, Walker invented a line of hair-care products when she was 37 years old. Eleven years later, she owned and operated her own thriving business, the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company. She trained thousands of consultants - almost all of them women - who purchased her products for resale to their customers throughout the United States, Central America, and the Caribbean. Through her work, Walker created a legacy of pride and do-it-yourself spirit that still resonates today. Read about this remarkable woman and her legacy in ""Madam C.J. Walker: Entrepreneur"".

In the early 20th century, Madame C.J. Walker identified a problem, one she herself had: African Americans had no hair care products specifically designed for their hair type. So what did she do? The uneducated daughter of sharecroppers researched, invented, tested, refined, and marketed her way to becoming a self-made millionaire! Historic photos fortify this inspiring rags-to-riches story.

Introduces the life of Madam C. J. Walker, who invented hair-care products for African Americans, founded factories and beauty schools, and organized one of the first national meetings of businesswomen in the United States.