Tour self-made millionaire Madam CJ Walker's historic mansion in Irvington
Out of the cruel crucible of racism and sexism, Walker built an empire.
IRVINGTON, New York (WABC) -- Madam C.J. Walker drove her own expensive cars, started her own haircare company, employed thousands of women and built her own mansion with every high-tech amenity.
Eyewitness News got a look inside her mansion in Irvington, New York. Imagine the reaction in 1918 when people found out the mansion was being built by a self-made millionaire who was also a Black woman.
"It was a story in the New York Times at the time," said historic architect Stephen Tilly. "This house was making a splash - her entrance on Millionaire's Row."
It's a far stretch from where she came. Walker began her life in a shack.
"She was orphaned at 7, married by 14, widowed at 20 with a daughter, a washer woman until 38. She transformed herself really with the inspiration of the women of the St. Paul AME Church as someone other than an illiterate washer woman," her great-great-granddaughter A'Lelia Bundles said.
And so Walker -- born Sarah Breedlove -- whose siblings and parents had been enslaved, put down roots in Indiana and then New York, making a fortune marketing her own hair ointment.
She wanted to make life as easy as possible for the women doing domestic work.Stephen Tilly
"Like most women in America, she had no indoor plumbing, didn't bathe often and washed her hair even less," Bundles said. "She was losing her hair because of dandruff and bad scalp infections."
But her homemade salve made with sulfur and petroleum jelly healed her scalp and her hair grew back.
The woman who lived more than half her life without plumbing designed her home with multiple luxurious bathrooms.
Her mansion had many bedrooms, bathrooms and a custom organ which piped music around the house.
She had a custom sink in the pantry and refrigeration -- even floor hookups for a central vacuum built in the house.
"She wanted to make life as easy as possible for the women doing domestic work," Tilly said.
It's the kind of work she had done and she wanted to make it very hard to ignore or forget her.
"She was making some of the biggest deposits of anybody in the city," Bundles said.
Walker would have been even richer if she didn't pay her employees so well.
"One woman said she made it possible for a woman to make more in a day than she could in a month working in someone's kitchen," Bundles said.
She also gave money away and was part of the Harlem Renaissance and countless charities.
"She said to women, 'I want you to understand that as Walker agents, your first duty is to humanity,'" Bundles said.
Walker's story continues as Bundles has written a book about her and The New Voices Foundation is bringing her home, Villa Lewaro, back.
She said to women, 'I want you to understand that as Walker agents, your first duty is to humanity.'ALelia Bundles
"Through The New Voices Foundation, we will have people who have gone through the program to come out, we'll be inviting women for workshops and seminars," said William James.
Out of the cruel crucible of racism and sexism, Walker built an empire.
"She did say to the women that I got my start by giving myself a start," Bundles said.
Walker may have been the original influencer - she took her problem, solved it, sold it, and became an American who lived fearlessly and took the wheel in her own miraculous life.
You can check out the New Voices Foundation on their website.
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