0:01 [SPEAKER_01]: how do you measure success? 0:03 [SPEAKER_01]: For some of us, it's about money or material possessions that reflect our social status. 0:09 [SPEAKER_01]: For others, it's more about looking back on where you started and how far you've come. 0:15 [SPEAKER_01]: You may have not heard the name Sarah Breedlove. 0:18 [SPEAKER_01]: But odds are, you've heard of Madam CJ Walker. 0:22 [SPEAKER_01]: Sarah Breedlove was her given name for the purposes of this episode, until we reached the point where Madam Walker gets her business going. 0:30 [SPEAKER_01]: We will refer to her as Sarah. 0:33 [SPEAKER_01]: It wouldn't come as a surprise if Sarah Breedlove constantly reflected on her humble beginnings. 0:38 [SPEAKER_01]: In a span of 12 years, she pulled herself out of poverty. 0:42 [SPEAKER_00]: In her own words, she said, 0:48 [SPEAKER_01]: With her lively and persevering spirit, she became the first African-American woman to be a self-made millionaire. 0:56 [SPEAKER_01]: It was a long way to go from the daughter of a freed slave, making meager wages, as a washerwoman, to a revolutionary entrepreneur. 1:05 [SPEAKER_01]: Sarah may have had some help along the way, but it was her sheer determination and personal fortitude. 1:12 [SPEAKER_01]: that landed her life of luxury, and maybe true success is not about the opportunities presented to you, but the opportunities you make for yourself. 1:22 [SPEAKER_01]: Sarah Breedlove was born on December 23rd, 1867 near Delta Louisiana. 1:28 [SPEAKER_01]: She came into this world on the RW Bernie Cotton Plantation. 1:33 [SPEAKER_01]: The same place where her parents had been enslaved since before the Civil War. 1:38 [SPEAKER_01]: It also happened to be the same plantation used by General Ulysses S. Grant as a battle staging area during the 1863 siege of Vexberg. 1:49 [SPEAKER_01]: Delta has a long history of slavery. 1:51 [SPEAKER_01]: It is said the first several residents of the community were brought in as slaves in 1709. 1:58 [SPEAKER_01]: Today, it has a population of roughly 250 residents. 2:02 [SPEAKER_01]: Located about 250 miles northwest of New Orleans, 2:06 [SPEAKER_01]: On the shores of the Mississippi River, Delta was part of a crucial network of riverside villages before the Civil War. 2:13 [SPEAKER_01]: The river itself was used to transport goods from the Midwest to the south and back by boat. 2:20 [SPEAKER_01]: European goods were often imported into New Orleans and sent upstream to the north. 2:26 [SPEAKER_01]: This is why when the Civil War began, the region played a significant role in growing tensions. 2:32 [SPEAKER_01]: If the North gained control of the river, Union Army troops could swoop into the southern states and lower their odds of economic survival. 2:41 [SPEAKER_01]: The rich farmland of the Mississippi River Valley could also be overtaken by the North. 2:47 [SPEAKER_01]: The river was so crucial to both northern and southern economies that President Lincoln said gaining control was key to winning the war. 2:56 [SPEAKER_01]: By the time the war ended in 1865, the south had been largely devastated by the destruction of railroad's homes and factories. 3:05 [SPEAKER_01]: That same year, the Louisiana Black Code was passed, although the triumph of the Union Army had resulted in widespread freedom for slaves, communities took matters into their own hands by passing Black Codes. 3:18 [SPEAKER_01]: This was a sliatempt to retain control over freed persons, instead of being enslaved to plantation owners in the South. 3:27 [SPEAKER_01]: African Americans worked as poorly paid laborers, instead. 3:31 [SPEAKER_01]: These black codes varied state by state, with Mississippi and South Carolina being among the first to establish these regulations. 3:40 [SPEAKER_01]: Some examples included restricting home ownership, with any certain parish and requiring black workers to obtain written permission from their employer to pass between parishes. 3:51 [SPEAKER_01]: Basically, freedom was a force. 3:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Even though Sarah was born a few days prior, to the fifth anniversary of the immancipation proclamation, widespread racism was still deeply ingrained in society. 4:05 [SPEAKER_01]: Her parents, Owen and Minerva Breedlove, opted to remain as sharecroppers on the plantation after being immancipated, like so many others like them, they had little choice without a livable income. 4:18 [SPEAKER_01]: The Breedlove family was incredibly poor. 4:20 [SPEAKER_01]: There were six children total. 4:22 [SPEAKER_01]: Sarah, her sister, Lovina, and her four brothers, Owen Jr., Alexander, James, and Solomon. 4:31 [SPEAKER_01]: Sarah was the first child in the family born free after slavery had been abolished. 4:36 [SPEAKER_01]: This gave her a few advantages. 4:38 [SPEAKER_01]: but an education was not one of them. 4:41 [SPEAKER_01]: By the time Sarah was school-aged, in the 1870s, white legislators had denied funding in favor of educating black children, so instead of being taught skills that would enhance her future, she worked alongside her parents and siblings in the cotton fields. 4:59 [SPEAKER_01]: Then in 1874, when Sarah was just seven years old, tragedy struck, a yellow fever pandemic killed both her parents, her sister, Lovina, who was recently married, took Sarah in. 5:13 [SPEAKER_01]: A few years later, in 1877, the sisters and Lovina's husband. 5:19 [SPEAKER_01]: Jesse Powell moved to Vicksburg, Mississippi. 5:22 [SPEAKER_01]: Unlike the rest of the state, which fell back into antebellum attitudes, Vicksburg was far more progressive. 5:29 [SPEAKER_01]: There was a deeper sense of camaraderie in the African-American communities there, but deeply rooted racism was still prevalent. 5:37 [SPEAKER_01]: Lovina and Sarah made ends meet by continuing to work in the cotton fields. 5:42 [SPEAKER_01]: Just in a different 5:46 [SPEAKER_01]: Jesse Powell, Sarah's brother-in-law, was very abusive, and Sarah's own words, he was a cruel and contemptuous, scoundrel. 5:56 [SPEAKER_01]: Sarah found the household tensions, and Jesse's tormenting spirit, unbearable, and an act of survival, and to get away from Jesse. 6:05 [SPEAKER_01]: Sarah married a laborer, seven years her senior, named Moses McMilliums. 6:11 [SPEAKER_01]: Sarah was just 14 when they wed. 6:14 [SPEAKER_01]: In June of 1885, the couple had a daughter, Lila, who would later go by the name of Lila. 6:21 [SPEAKER_01]: Two short years later, Moses died from an undocumented cause. 6:26 [SPEAKER_01]: Sarah became a widowed mother of one at age 20, something that we probably can't even fathom nowadays, hoping for a fresh start, Sarah relocated again this time for the north to St. Louis, Missouri, where her brothers had established themselves as barbers, to keep herself in her younger daughter afloat, Sarah worked tirelessly as a maid, washerwoman, and cook. 6:52 [SPEAKER_01]: Wash her woman duties involved caring wet, heavy laundry, back to her home, and scrubbing fabrics with lie, a harsh chemical that ate away at the skin on her hands and arms. 7:04 [SPEAKER_01]: The Strenuous Manual Labor paid off when she got to see a Leela graduate from St. Louis Public Schools, and then go on to Knox for College, a prestigious Black Private College in Tennessee. 7:15 [SPEAKER_01]: Her daughter had been granted the education Sarah had been denied, and it was a proud moment 7:22 [SPEAKER_01]: Like many innovations, the idea that would change Sarah's life emerged from personal need. 7:28 [SPEAKER_01]: Not long after arriving in St. Louis, Sarah noticed her hair was falling out. 7:33 [SPEAKER_01]: This wasn't an unusual occurrence. 7:36 [SPEAKER_01]: As Black women of her era engaged in certain hair rituals that were incredibly damaging to their hair, one of the most common styling techniques involved dividing hair up into sections. 7:47 [SPEAKER_01]: tightly wrapping string around each section, and then twisting tightly. 7:51 [SPEAKER_01]: The goal was to have sleeker, straighter hair, after it was combed out, but the practice put extreme strain on the hair follicle in scalp. 8:00 [SPEAKER_01]: Other causes of hair loss that factored into the time period were infrequent washing, illness, high fever, scalp disease, and diets low in protein. 8:09 [SPEAKER_01]: Sarah tried every product she could get her hands on, but nothing seemed to improve her hair's condition. 8:15 [SPEAKER_01]: There were some products already on the market, geared towards straightening African American hair, but many were damaging. 8:22 [SPEAKER_01]: Any termbow malone of St. Louis developed her own straightening product that proved to be less harmful to hair follicles, and there were any number of patent medicines for that purpose. 8:33 [SPEAKER_01]: Sarah strived to build upon what was already available and recognizing and underserved market for African-American beauty products. 8:41 [SPEAKER_01]: She set her focus on developing something marketable. 8:45 [SPEAKER_01]: That would also improve people's lives. 8:48 [SPEAKER_01]: In between washerwoman jobs, she used her wooden washtubs to mix up various concoctions. 8:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Sarah relied upon her friends and family to test them. 8:57 [SPEAKER_01]: and also tried them on her own hair. 8:59 [SPEAKER_01]: This was a big risk. 9:01 [SPEAKER_01]: She wasn't a chemist. 9:03 [SPEAKER_01]: She didn't even have a basic education. 9:06 [SPEAKER_01]: For all she knew, her test formulas could damage her hair even more. 9:11 [SPEAKER_01]: Luckily, she limited upon a mixture that not only straightened her hair, it also made it grow. 9:17 [SPEAKER_01]: By 1905, she had perfected the product she called, perfected wonderful hair grower. 9:23 [SPEAKER_01]: Sarah sold them door-to-door around the black community in St. Louis. 9:27 [SPEAKER_01]: It was a great way to make extra money. 9:29 [SPEAKER_01]: A few years later, she moved to Denver, Colorado to be closer to her recently widowed sister-in-law in nieces. 9:36 [SPEAKER_01]: Sarah's brother Alexander had passed away tragically from an intestinal ailment. 9:41 [SPEAKER_01]: Sarah's new surroundings didn't derail her plans to expand her business. 9:45 [SPEAKER_01]: Other hair products for African-American women soon followed. 9:49 [SPEAKER_01]: These included Gawlsine hair oil, temple grower, and tether-south, 9:56 [SPEAKER_01]: In addition, although she didn't develop the steel hot comb itself, she expanded upon the idea by creating a model with spaced out teeth for thick hair. 10:07 [SPEAKER_01]: This made it easier for all black women to straighten, press, and style their hair. 10:13 [SPEAKER_01]: Her door to door business continued to bring in a decent sum of money, the products sustained high demand, because it enabled black women to achieve a more polished and acceptable aesthetic, making them more enjoyable to white mainstream society. 10:29 [SPEAKER_01]: It also enhanced women's self-esteem, after decades of oppression and servitude.
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