You're Dead to Me - Madam C.J. Walker (Radio Edit)

Episode Date: May 17, 2024

In this episode, Greg Jenner is joined by Professor Noliwe Rooks and comedian Athena Kugblenu to learn all about the life and business savvy of 19th-century Black American haircare entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker. After working as a sales agent for another haircare brand, Walker founded her own company, selling products to help Black women look after their hair and becoming incredibly wealthy in the process. But how did she make so much money, and what did she spend it on? From impoverished beginnings to a lavish villa in New York, via her charitable and political work, this episode charts Walker's journey to becoming the first self-made woman millionaire in American history.This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Andrew Himmelberg Written by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. Today we're jumping into our Ford Model team and motoring back to 19th century America to learn all about the brilliantly successful black hair care entrepreneur, Madame C.J. Walker. And to help us, we have two very special guests. In History Corner, she's the L. Herbert Ballou University Professor of Africana

Studies at Brown University in America. She researches the cultural and racial implications of beauty, fashion and adornment, as well race, capitalism, and education. You may have read one of her many books including Hair Raising, Beauty, Culture, and African American Women. It's Professor Nolewe Rooks. Welcome Nolewe. Thank you so much for having me. Absolute pleasure to have you here. And in Comedy Corner, she's an award winning comedian and writer. You'll have heard her loads on BBC Radio 4 and on all the podcasts including The Guilty Feminist and her own show, Keeping Athena Company. You may have heard her loads on BBC Radio 4 and on all the podcasts, including The Guilty Feminist

and her own show, Keeping Athena Company. You may have seen her on the telly on Mock the Week. And of course you'll remember her from her starring roles in our previous episodes about the Haitian Revolution, Mansa Musa and in Jenga of Vindonga and Matamba, it's Athena Kiblenu, welcome back Athena, fourth time lucky. I know, thank you for having me back, thank you. Well, we love having you on.

Today we're on American history, so I'm curious, are you comfortable in 19th century American. Today we're on American history so I'm curious are you comfortable in 19th century American history 20th century American history? I'm gonna say you've made a mistake today you've hired two experts. Oh no. I have seen the Netflix account of Madame CJ Walker's life with Octavia Spencer so I kind of feel like that no one's gonna be funny today it would just be two people you know everything about her life sorry. I kind of feel like no one's going to be funny today. It would just be two people who know everything about her life. Sorry.

I guess I'll try and be funny. I don't know. So what do you know? If you're listening from the US, you're probably going to know about Madam C.J. Walker. I think she's quite a big deal stateside. If you're a fan of the Guinness World Records, you might know that Madam C.J. Walker was

the first American woman to be a self-made millionaire. But how did Madam C.J. Walker rise from rags to riches? What did she splash her cash on? And when exactly did Jesus Christ himself get into the haircare business? Let's find out. So Professor Nolliwe, we don't meet many babies called Madam. So that's not going to be her name at birth. So who was she and what was her origin story, please? Yes, no, she was not named madam at birth. She was actually named Sarah, Sarah Breedlove.

And she was born in December of 1867 in Delta, Louisiana. Her family were sharecroppers, which was a system that meant that they farmed the land they lived on and then paid rent to the people who actually owned the land. When she was born, she was the only one who was not born into slavery. She was the first one in her family that was actually born free and is considered a U.S. citizen at birth. And her birthday was only days before the five-year anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which had freed the enslaved Black people

of America in January of 1863. You know when like your little siblings get an easier life than you, that's the ultimate version of that, isn't it? Yeah. Surely at that point you celebrate it, right? Like would her siblings have celebrated the opportunity she would therefore have? She and her siblings do not appear to have been close. And unfortunately, it's not clear how close she was with her parents. They died within 18 months of each other. And so she was orphaned at the time. She was about eight. She had to move in with one of her older sisters and her sister's husband, a man named Jesse Powell. Even though Sarah was only 11

when all of this was going on, he demanded that she economically contribute to the household income. So it's a rags to riches fairy tale that we're hoping to get in the end, but it's beginning with an orphan girl working for her keep, only 11. What kind of job do you think she was doing at 11, Athena?

Oh god, I can only imagine. I mean, I don't think I had paper rounds in those days. No. I feel like it would be something laborious, something that is bad for your nails and your hands. It's good instincts. It was Laundress. It is the lowest of the low, but at least she's escaped from her cruel brother-in-law. I mean, how do you think she then tries to get away from him? Okay, let me get into that the mind of a young person who has a horrible job wants to get away It's not a man is it they don't just please don't say it's a man like

She finds a guy and goes you'll do have you read the script Yeah, that's exactly what happens very Cinderella move. She marries the first man she sees. Not a handsome prince. Don't do it, Sarah! No, glass slipper required. Unfortunately also, she's only 14. So I have to honk my problematic marriage klaxon and she marries her not-so-prince charming Nellie Wade, does this man live up to my Disney expectations? This is the frog that never turns into a prince.

Oh no. Her prince charming was named Moses McWilliams. They stayed married a few years. By the time she was 18, she and Moses had one daughter, Lilia, the only child that she would ever have. And then in 1888, Moses died. Sarah ends up a widow and a single mother at the age of 20. I'm clinging to the fact that she's going to end up successful and a millionaire, but we're still a long way from that happy ever after.

So where does this young single mother, this young widow, what does she do with her life next in the leeway? So Sarah and her young daughter Lilia get on a steamboat heading north up to St. Louis. Sarah moved into one of the poorest areas in the city and took a job as a laundress again, work she knew how to do. So for much of the next decade, she worked six days a week as a washerwoman and went to church on her Sunday day off. Sarah- Because obviously at the beginning we said she was born into freedom, right? But there doesn't seem to be a lot of freedom, does it? Like, she doesn't seem to have a lot of life choices. It's just the same America with just different paperwork.

Yeah. You know, the admin is a little different. So 1889 she's moved up to St. Louis. Is that Missouri? Yes. Oh, yeah? I know that because of Nellie. Okay, cool. Yeah.

But in 1894, age 27, she finds herself a new fella. He's called John Davis. No, Leeway, is John Davis a higher standard of man? Very soon after she got married, she regretted the marriage almost instantly. John struggled a lot. He couldn't quite find work. She still had to work as a laundress. He also had another girlfriend on top of all of this. Times have always been tough. It's not just now guys. Times have been tough for 150 years. I feel good about that, was I right? Yeah, he's got another lady.

But to make it even worse, like the little bit of money that Sarah's making as a laundress, he's taking it and dividing it between both women. And then more seriously, because it gets worse, he was an alcoholic and he was abusive when drunk. And then in 1903, he claimed that Sarah had deserted him, despite him being the one with the girlfriend. And this was the end of Sarah and John's six-year relationship. And she went back to being called Sarah McWilliams. This woman cannot catch a break. She can't catch a break,

and I think the great poet and nurse has said, to the left, to the left, you know, a patch of stuff is in a box, she should have done that before he did it to her, and it's a lesson for us all. Well, in 1902, Sarah, she has dumped John Davis. She's in her mid-30s now. Prime. Prime, she's flirty.

Single and mingling. Yeah, and she meets another man, and this guy is called Charles Joseph Walker CJ Walker You getting good vibes at this stage? No assume. I don't know the story at this stage. I'm like why you still meeting men But it sounds promising because I'm assuming that this is the Walker of her Walker name. Yes This is her last marriage. So there's at least that and her walker name. Yes, this is her last marriage, so there's at least that. And Charles was, in the census, describes him as a newsman. And it's likely that he worked for one of St. Louis's three

black newspapers, probably a newspaper at the time called The Clarion. He was known at people around who were writing about him at the time, said he had a lot of charisma and that he had a lot of drive. He was a working man. So, my mum always said, beware of a charming man. Beware a charming man. Unfortunately, your mother was not there for Sarah at the time. This is when Sarah, as we know her, takes the first step on the path to become Madam C.J. Walker. And the start of that journey is being a sales agent for another black beauty entrepreneur called Annie Malone, is that right?

Yes, yes. So in St. Louis in 1903, Sarah starts working as a sales agent for a woman named Annie Turnbull Malone selling haircare products door to door to other black women. Sarah had dandruff and she had psoriasis of the scalp as did other black women and so she wanted to show her hair instead of having it wrapped up all the time she wanted healthy hair, a healthy scalp. And white owned companies in this period while pretending to be black owned often told black women you know you should just straighten your hair use our products for your hair.

But Malone and later Madame Walker the niche that they came up with was providing products that actually nourished and help manage black hair and not just control it. Was door-to-door sales generally a thing or was that innovative as well at that time? A woman a few years before named Estee Lauder. Oh yeah I know her. Yeah my mum likes her stuff unfortunately. She had actually started this as an immigrant woman as a way of making ends meet on the east coast in the US. She was sort of the first, but Malone and Walker are the first black people. Sarah, who now we might want to start referring to Madam Walker perhaps, she often would tell

a compelling origin story of where she learned the formula for her own hair salve for her scalp. Do you want to guess what this story is? I want to say that she got a vision, but I don't feel, who would give you the vision? There's nobody, there's no kind of spiritual God that she got a vision, but I don't feel... Who would give you the vision? There's nobody... There's no kind of spiritual God that is like, hey, do you want better hair? But at the end of the day, like, hairlines are important. I mean, my hairlines go, and I wouldn't mind a vision now, to be honest. Jesus Christ himself comes to her in a dream.

He had great hair! He has great hair. Whatever... Even like, whether you see a black Jesus or a white Jesus, the one consistent thing is the hair is good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, anyway, I'm familiar with Christ offering salvation, but not so much salves.

Black people are hilarious. What did Jesus tell you? Oh, he told me he had to deal with my ends. Yeah, so tell us about black Jesus and his hair care routine, please. So Sarah said that one night she was praying for a solution to her hair problems, her hair falling out, having dandruff, psoriasis. That evening she had a dream and Black Jesus, Jesus who as he appeared to her was a Black man and gave her a secret recipe for a hair salve.

She got the ingredients, made up the recipe, tried it on herself, tried it on her friends and family. It worked wonders, hair grew forth, scalps were healthy. So all of this happened while Sarah was still working for Annie Malone. Now Annie became angry and challenged the story of Jesus giving birth. No! It sounds so legit! Annie wanted the world to know that Sarah stole the recipe from her.

The real reason for the success of both women's products was likely their promotion of a regime of regular shampoos and scalp massages. Both of their products used a sulfur-based formula that neither had invented, but both became fierce rivals for the rest of their career after this supposed betrayal. Okay, so after her divine encounter in July 1905, Sarah boarded a train for Denver with a pocketful of dreams and a bag full of Annie Malone's hair care products. To what extent is she heading out on her own and to what extent is she meant to be there selling Annie's products?

She also opened a small workshop and started to focus on making and selling her own products door to door. She probably had good customer networks because she had been selling Malone's products. By January of 1906, she and Charles Walker were married and she started marketing her Walker's Wonderful Hair Grower. And that's the first time she starts calling herself Madam CJ Walker. The Walker business was multifaceted. It manufactured hair care products, sold them door to door, trained sales agents, did mail orders, and also taught hair care at salons that they opened. Wow.

So she left Denver in about 1906. Sarah and Charles arrive in Indianapolis around 1910, and they get a warm welcome from the local black community, and there's great industrial conditions there. So they establish their headquarters. And one of the reasons that they actually left Denver was because of its small black community. It was also because as soon as Walker started to do well in Denver, Annie Malone came along and set up a rival salon right across town. Danielle Pletka Annie, let it go.

Annie Malone So they picked up and moved to Indianapolis and things went well. Yeah, I mean, Annie, as I understand it, was in the same street. Is that right? Yeah, yeah, right next door, actually. Yes, she came and bought a bigger place literally right next door. What's really sad here is there's like this space for kind of both of them to be millionaires. But she was cut. Yes, it was the resentment. It was like vengeance. Yeah. By 1911, the company is thriving and it becomes incorporated too, it becomes a registered company. That's a big deal for a woman whose family were enslaved and she's come from a hard, scrabble life.

It's a part of why she's so popular is because it really is a big turnaround story. So by 1911, the madam has a factory in Indianapolis. She has 950 sales agents. She's got thousands of customers, multiple hair parlors and a substantial personal net worth. And she had really made it as a businesswoman. But while the business is doing great guns, Nolywe, we once again have to say the men in her life, bitter disappointment. Yeah, so she was a business genius, obviously, but her marriage radar might not have been great. So the way the story goes is that while he was on a business trip in 1912, Charles met a woman named Dora Larry and Dora actually ran the Walker salon on the campus of Tuskegee University in Birmingham, Alabama. While there, Dora convinced Charles that Sarah

was treating him badly and that he should join forces with her. It's on him. It's not Dora. Okay. Like, oh, I didn't want to do it, but she told me you were horrible. No. Find another excuse. So, of course, it didn't take long for Sarah to discover that Charles and Dora were having this affair. And she confirmed it by actually listening through the keyhole at their hotel room in Atlanta. We're told that she came very close to almost shooting Charles, but she thought better of it. But she did go back to Indianapolis immediately and begin divorce proceedings. One of the things that she carried

out of the divorce was the name, C.J. Walker, Madam C.J. Walker, and the branding, because it was so much a part of her business and her branding. So she dumped him, but C.J. Walker and the branding because it was so much a part of her business and her branding. So she dumped him but kept the name. I came into this room thinking, surely I'm going to leave liking men more. Surely. So Sarah Walker, she's keeping the name. She dumped her cheating husband. The business is thriving. In a previous episode, we did the Harlem Renaissance and we spoke about Liliya, her daughter, throwing these big lavish parties in Harlem and really living the life. So Noliwe, does Liliya learn from her mum? Is Sarah starting to splash the cash and, you know,

post these kind of lavish soirees and how affluent are we talking? So, you know, they both like to live a life of luxury and they spent money on cars and real estate, including a home on 136th Street in New York and Harlem. Madame Walker started throwing lavish parties every April when Leoya visited the Indianapolis headquarters where she hosted prominent black musicians, dancers, poets and performers. But by this point, Madam Walker wanted to be seen as wealthy, influential and important and black newspapers and magazines helped to propagate this image of her. Was she a good employer?

The thing about most of the people in her business is they end up being sort of freelancers or whatever the term would be. A franchise would probably be a better way. You sort of paid some money to the company, you got some of the products, but it allowed people who had a certain kind of drive, a certain kind of charm and who wanted to have some freedom around their economic life. Any black woman could buy into it and start to build a base. So it wasn't so much that she was everyone's boss. Her model was much more about just empowering her workers to stand on their own. And they were quite fond of her.

It's Annie Malone, isn't it? Like Annie Malone wasn't there all for herself. Right. And you know, Madame T. J. Walker's gone, actually, you can have it, just give me a percentage of what you sell. Right? But there's a certain element of real anxiety for Sarah because she doesn't feel she belongs. Imposter syndrome! Imposter syndrome alert! We all have it.

Mine is to a slightly lesser scale. You know, I've got a six burner hob and sometimes, do I deserve these two extra hobs that I don't use? I, you know, I often question what I did to deserve such a big cooker. No, Liwei, I think we have here someone who's come such a long way from her childhood of poverty and now hanging out with these brilliant people, a lot of whom are intellectuals. How does she get around this fear of being in their company and feeling like she's not educated?

I mean, she was someone who just hadn't even had the benefit of the most rudimentary kind of formal education. So she hires a tutor in secret, a woman named Alice Kelly, who was also the forelady in one of her factories, because she wanted to be involved with the black intelligentsia, she had to figure out how to ingratiate herself with leaders like Booker T. Washington. In January 1912, Washington held a gathering that was called the Negro Farmers Conference. Walker wanted to go and speak about her products,

but she received a very curt refusal from him. So she showed up at his home to hand him a letter because she wanted to persuade him to let her speak. And she wanted for him to know that she thought of herself as a former farmer who had made something of herself. And she wanted to highlight the work she was doing for the black community. And this work, this gumption worked for her and she got to speak for 10 minutes at the one in 1914. She was given the title of the foremost businesswoman

of our race. So, Madam CJ Walker, the foremost businesswoman of our race. Pop that on her on your letterhead. That's great, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, I don't know how you qualify that. I'd probably take exceptions to that site. Or I mean, imagine that't know how you qualify that. I'd probably take exceptions to that title. I mean, imagine that on your email signature. I guess Annie Malone would be furious to hear that title has gone. Well, you know, well, get your imagine.

I wanted to be, yeah, you wouldn't even conceive that that exists as a title. OK, so Madam Walker, she wants to do good. And that charitable element of giving to a certain extent is good for the brand, but it's genuine too. Absolutely. She did a lot of charity work. We know she did a lot of charity work because she told us she did a lot of charity work.

She contributed to the NAACP, National Association of Colored People's anti-lynching campaign. She regularly distributed food baskets to poor neighbors around Christmas. She actually talked about and saw her company as a form of philanthropy. And she believed that by giving black women sales jobs and teaching them to be hairdressers, that she was helping them to avoid lives of hard labor in domestic service or in factories. And so from 1917, she also held annual conferences to encourage her sales agents to support political causes. And they would spend mornings discussing business and afternoons discussing politics in the public sessions. I'm a big fan of giving loudly. If I buy a £10,000 jumper and that logo is on my shirt,

that should be quiet. But if I give 10 grand to the anti-lynching league, I need to tell people about that. I think we should all be loud about how much we give and people be like, what have you given recently? And I'll be quiet now. But I don't have anything, just the hob. That's all I have. The six burner hob, yeah. Available from your house. I mean, we then, in 1917, Noliwe, we've got her holding this annual convention where she's teaching politics, you know, in the afternoons. But we also get America entering the First World War. How does our philanthropist respond to this new national crisis? Really what she did is she started to give money to improve conditions for black servicemen who were serving

under conditions of Jim Crow segregation in the military. By the end of September of 1917, she attended the National Equal Rights League's annual convention. And here she's rubbing shoulders with women like Ida B. Wells and others, and she discussed the continued silence from the White House on issues about race and racism in the US. And like other black intellectuals in America, she made plans to attend the Paris Peace Talks after the war to advocate for global and national black interests, though she didn't actually end up going.

The question I want to ask is, you know, Madam C.J. Walker, does she get a sort of peaceful retirement? I'm guessing the answer is no. She works until the very end. This company is her everything. When you think about where she came from and near the end of her life where she was, she wanted to protect it. In 1918, she made $276,000 more or less, which was an increase of over $100,000 from the previous year. which was an increase of over $100,000 from the previous year. Then by 1919, Madam Walker embarked on her final tour, where she again fell ill.

And in May of 1919, she slipped into a coma, and on the 25th of that month, she died. Sarah's last words on her deathbed is, I want to live to help my race. So I think we get a sense of her psychology there. Yeah. Nellie, how did the world react to the death? Because I think you talked about the word celebrity earlier. Was she famous? Was she a celebrity? Was she beloved by this point? Nellie Johnson She was completely beloved, in part because of all of the charitable work, in part because she was featured in black newspapers all over the country. And then the Walker hairdressers were parts of black communities all over the country.

So when she died, it reverberated around the nation. Even the mainstream white press noticed her death and wrote about her significance, but black newspapers made a special occasion of it. They talked about all of her contributions to hair care, her contributions to the rights of black people in the United States, and her contributions to the advancement of women's rights. You can tell quite a lot in People Die, how people respond. Yeah, absolutely, that outpouring.

But I guess, Mike, the question I have is how comes I know Estee Lauder, but I don't know Madame Sujay Walker in the same way? Like what happened to all of it? Well, the money went to Alelia and Alelia spent quite a lot of it, I think. Alelia. But the one thing I want to ask actually in Alia is, we mentioned the beginning,

the literal million dollar question, was Sarah Walker the first female self-made millionaire in American history? So when she died, her actual net worth was right around $600,000 all in, like everything on the table. The nuance window! This is the part of the show where Athena and I get scalp massages and Professor Nolee can take to the conference stage to tell us something that we need to know about Madam C.J. Walker. Nolee, you have two minutes. Take it away, please.

So for my nuance, I suppose what I most want everyone to understand is the significance of what Walker was able to do in really being an innovator in the black beauty space, but more starting a business that at its marketing core, every ad early on, every engagement, every newspaper article talked about how black women deserve to be treated well, how a visit to the Walker Beauty Salon should be an opportunity for black women to be massaged, petted, made out over, made to relax. She talked about how hard black women worked in that the opportunity that Walker agents, while earning money for themselves through beauty and hair care, could support their sisters, could possibly be one of the few spaces in

American society that provided this sense of rest and comfort and care for the hardest working black women, working the worst jobs, the least paid jobs regularly. That's a real kind of intervention and it is different than what Annie Malone did in terms of her advertising, in terms of how she told people her products were better than others. But also in addition to what she was able to do for the clientele who when she started this company, 90% of black women, the only jobs open to them were in agriculture, some kind of farming, going back to Walker's early years being a sharecropper, working for low wages, never able to actually get ahead and buy anything for yourself of note. She made it possible for black women to not have to serve as domestics

or agricultural workers. She started an entire beauty culture, beauty industry for black people and whatever else we think about her, we really, really have to make sure we understand that is a significant intervention. Beautiful. Thank you so much, Nolee Way. All that's left for me to do is say a huge thank you to our guests in History Corner. We had the incredible Professor Nolee Way Rooks from Brown University. Thank you, Nolee Way. Thank you for having me. And in Comedy Corner, the amazing Athena from Brown University. Thank you Nolywe. Thank you for having me. And in Comedy Corner, the amazing Athena Kiblenu. Thank you, Athena.

Thank you. And to you lovely listener, join me next time as we comb through more history, looking for more fascinating stories. But for now, I'm off to go and launch my own history media platform. I didn't steal the idea from Dan Snow. You hate to meet me in a dream.

Bye! Hate to meet you in a dream. Bye! From BBC Radio 4, Scott Lidster, you've directed another terrible film, the 15th in as many years. When are you going to stop? No room. As soon as they told me that they were setting up a commission

on race and ethnic disparities, I said, well, as long as Tim, Tim, Tim, Tim and Tim are on the team, you'll have everything sorted before the tea and biscuits arrive. No room. Jack wasn't familiar with my BAFTA award-winning style of walking around my guest's house before the interview starts and saying uncomfortably forced and awkward boring things. Michael Spicer, no room. It's a sketch show with lots and lots and lots and lots of Michael Spicers.

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