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Before Mary Kay and Tupperware, Madam C.J. Walker Went Knocking
ST. LOUIS, MO, (PRNewswire) August 20, 2006 - The Direct Selling Association (DSA) has posthumously awarded Madam C.J. Walker its Distinguished Service Award.
"We're honored to recognize Madam C.J. Walker for her pioneering contributions to the direct sales industry as one of America's earliest entrepreneurs to employ door-to-door-sales," said Amy Robinson, DSA's Director of Communications and Media Relations.
Walker developed a scalp condition in the 1890s, which caused her to lose most of her hair. She attempted to create a remedy and eventually developed a treatment that helped her hair grow.
Subsequently, she created a line of hair care products and started her own company in 1905, the Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company in St. Louis. Walker traveled during the next year and a half throughout the heavily black South and Southeast to sell her products door-to-door and to demonstrate her scalp treatments in churches and lodges.
"Walker encouraged other Black women to leave unpromising careers as poorly paid washerwomen and maids to become Walker Agents and earn commissions," said Erica Littlejohn Burnette, Co-founder and Vice President of Marketing for Our Own Image, the Ohio-based direct selling company that nominated Walker for the award. Our Own Image offers African American party supplies, gift bags, keepsakes, journals and home accessories.
"She made a tremendous impact to the quality of life for tens of thousands of black women," Littlejohn Burnette added.
Since Walker's early efforts to distribute her products door-to-door, direct selling has evolved into a $30 billion industry that now includes home parties, one-on-one demonstrations and other methods.
Today, there are nearly 14 million sales consultants across the country employed by more than 1,500 U.S. based direct selling companies.
By the time of Walker's death in 1917, Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Co. was the largest business owned by an African American in the U.S. Her estate and business had a combined worth of more than $1 million (approximately $10 million today). The Guinness Book of World Records cites Walker as the first female American self-made millionaire.
 The Saint Louis Front Page Style St. Louis is owned and maintained by the Moore Design Group for the sole purpose of disseminating news and information about the Metropolitan Saint Louis area. Text or graphics may not be copied, rewritten or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission. For more information, contact editor@slfp.com All rights reserved world wide © 1996 - 2008 Moore Design Group .
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