Black History: Madame C.J.Walker Preparations

I'm Sarah Breedlove, born in 1867 to freed slaves, orphaned in 1874, a washerwoman and servant until I married at the age of 14, and widowed at the age of 19 with a child, Leila. That's a lot for a 19 year old?

                                        

We moved to St. Louis so I could be a laundress for another 17 years. Then, my hair began to fall out in my 30's, and I created a concoction with ingredients from Africa. From old mouth-to-hand recipes, I experimented and refined the formulas and soon I had new hair and the beginnings of a new life.

Credit: New-York Historical Society

I moved to Denver for a better opportunity to sell my new products and arrived in 1905 with only $1.05 in my pocket, but with a trunkful of products designed for African American hair and skin. 

"Wonderful Hair Grower, Glossine, and Vegetable Shampoo were well accepted by the African-American women of Denver. By 1906, C. J. Walker moved to Denver and the two soon married."*2

     

From then on I was known as "Madame C.J.Walker Preparations".  Mr. Walker was a great help for a while, and then we separated. My business and my ambition continued to grow. Again, I had to take care of my family.

The women who sold my products were trained in to be professional LADY consultants, how to administer the products, and of course--sell them.

I continued to build my business, filled needs in the market, promoted women's self reliance, and to expand. In 1908 I established a beauty college to teach women the use of all my preparations. We created a national sales force of women personally selling my products. I had traveling agents also teach them how to set up beauty shops in their homes and create businesses of their own.

There is much more to my story, my headquarters in Harlem, the new plant in Indianapolis, my activist years. Yes, I was a force to be reckoned with!

"I had to make my own living and my own opportunity! But I made it! Don't sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!"¹ 

Madame C.J.Walker, today, is credited with being the first African American woman millionaire. Much of her profits had been given to worthy causes.

This--all because my hair fell out---and I was tired of washing other-peoples' clothes. 

P.S. My formulas are still available in the marketplace to day---found on something called 'Google'.

Doll: an early Nikki

Dress: Vintage Toni dress (she has added stuffing material to fit this)

Black skirt: new fabric

Hat: unknown vintage

Gloves: Mattel High Society

Cosmetics: assorted vintage Mattel

Victorian cutouts -unknown source.

Notations:

1-A'Lelia Perry Bundles, Madam C. J. Walker: Entrepreneur (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1991), 105.

2 National Park Service - https://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/walker/WAfacts1.html

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All the opinions and photographs in this blog are my own, unless noted. I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown or anywhere I shop.

 Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission. 

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Black History Month: James Baldwin

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Author, Activist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist 1924-1987.

During 1969-70, I was fortunate to take two Black Literature classes at University of Wisconsin-Stout. My instructor was a gentleman from South Africa---they were my most memorable courses of my college days. I wish I could remember his name, but, I do remember all the authors and the books, poems, and essays, we read, dissected, and debated. 

 Google search page James Baldwin books drawing from multiple sources.

At the top of the huge heap of reading for these classes---were the American works of James Baldwin. It was the peak of the civil rights movement. Baldwin was everywhere in the news. Our class had students of all nationalities and skin colors, so debates were heated and searching, no begging for points of understanding. 

This last December a movie adapted from James Baldwin's book, "If Beale Street Could Talk," 1974, was well received critically and currently nominated for several Academy Rewards 2018. I'm pleased that Baldwin is again in the news. Now, I have to read that book.

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Collage/Time Magazine cover --1963 from Google image page

His words were unabashedly truthful and unapologetic in assessing the African American experience. Baldwin's writings were and still are intense and unforgiving on all sides. James Baldwin fought for civil rights with his strong voice in novels, essays and poetry throughout the 20^thcentury. 

Born in Harlem, Baldwin wrote in a powerful voice for the oppressed and worked as an activist in the Civil Rights Movement. His early works of the 1950-60's were produced while still living in Harlem.

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Later, Baldwin considered himself a trans-Atlantic commuter, as he spent considerable time living in France.

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Here I imagine him, vividly alive, and still writing---perhaps at a retrospective event on his career. I have no source for the photo on the right.

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Collages from Pinterest photos and the large photo quote/I could not find the original source.

The quote is powerful and applicable today.

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“The place in which I will fit will not exist until I make it!”James Baldwin

Many of his essays as well as poetry are online…take a look. His words will take your breath away and evoke an emotional, as well as an intellectual response. Not for the faint of heart, his writing disturbs us, as does TRUTH.

"All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up."James Baldwin

Another source of interest, a video compiled for American Masters.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/james-baldwin-civil-rights-highlights/2670/ice 

Features highlights of Baldwin’s deep involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, including “The Fire Next Time,” the March on Washington, the March from Selma to Montgomery and the Baldwin/Buckley Debate at Cambridge University — all excerpted from the film, JamesBaldwin: 

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All the opinions and photographs in this blog are my own, unless noted. I will be happy to give credit to the photos I used in the collages. I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown or anywhere I shop.

 Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission. 

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Sandi Magle

Black History Month: Phillis Wheatley

Do you know who was the first African American to be published? You would be surprised to know it was a 20 year-old slave named Phillis Wheatley in 1773.

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Phillis Wheatley born in 1753 in Gambia/Senegal, Africa. A young girl was captured by slave traders and arrived the colonies  in 1761 on the ship, “the Phillis.” Bought by the prominent  Wheatley family in Boston to serve as a personal maid. The young slave was named Phillis and took the last name of Wheatley. Phillis was precocious and quickly learned English, Latin and Greek along with the Wheatley children. She held a favored position in the Wheatley family and yet was still a slave.

Courtesy of American Antiquarian Society

Phillis wrote poetry through her youth influenced by Neoclassical poets. Conventional for the times she wrote poems on morality, piety, and freedom. 

Wheatleys first book, “ Poems on Various things. Religious, and Moral,” was published in 1773 in London, Eventually she was published in America, and is considered the first African American to be published.

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Phillis Wheatley represented an Abolitionists' dream, an example of an educated black woman from Africa, a testimony that blacks could be both artistic and intellectual. 

 In 1776 she wrote to George Washington including a poem for him.

Thee, first in peace and honors—we demand

The grace and glory of thy martial band.

Fam’d for the valour, for the virtues more, 

Hear every tongue the guardian aid implore!

Upon his invitation, Phillis later met Washington in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

She carried on correspondence with various notables of the day, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John-Paul Jones and many religious leaders and members of the abolition movement, here and abroad. 

Freed prior to the death of the Wheatleys, the children also died in young adulthood, leaving Phillis to fend for herself after a life of comfort and privilege. She died in poverty at the age of thirty-one.

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She is immortalized on a Boston commons in bronze.

Boston Woman’s Memorial byArtist Meredith Bergmann

The memorial of three women who made significant contributions for Boston.

Abigal Adams:Phyllis Wheatley:Lucy Stone

More can be found here: 

https://www.boston.gov/departments/womens-advancement/boston-womens-memorial

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Phillis-Wheatley/media/641615/216609 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/phillis-wheatley

and on numerous poetry sites.

 I will try and respond to every comment and answer every question.

All the opinions and photographs in this blog are my own, unless noted. I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown or anywhere I shop.

 Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission. 

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Sandi Magle