Top 10 Inventions

Sarah Breedlove was born in 1867. She was an orphan at age 8, a wife at 14, a mother at 17 and a widow at 19. Walker, creator of the Walker Hair Care System.

Breedlove had suffered extreme hair loss, which was common for black women of the time, due to scalp disease, bad diet, damaging hair products and infrequent washing. She claimed to pray to God for assistance and purported that a man appeared to her in a dream with the recipe for pomade that would regrow and settle her hair. Walker’s method of selling her hair care system was just as innovative as the system herself. She was one of the first people that to use direct sales; she hired women to serve as doortodoor salespeople, and she taught them how share our website to use all of the products in a university she founded. Walker was believed to be the first female millionaire, though records later showed that she was about $400,000 short [source: Jefferson]. Still, the former Sarah Breedlove amassed quite a fortune for her time, much of which she donated to the YMCA and the NAACP.