Gospel of Giving: the Philanthropy of Madam C.J
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GOSPEL OF GIVING: THE PHILANTHROPY OF MADAM C.J. WALKER, 1867-1919 Tyrone McKinley Freeman Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Indiana University October 2014 Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ____________________________________ Nancy Marie Robertson, Ph.D., Chair ____________________________________ Andrea Walton, Ph.D. Doctoral Committee ____________________________________ Modupe Labode, D.Phil. September 18, 2014 ____________________________________ Marybeth Gasman, Ph.D. ii © 2014 Tyrone McKinley Freeman iii DEDICATION In memory of my grandparents, Roscoe & Virginia Cooper and David & Ruth Freeman. In honor of my wife and children, Michelle, Alexander, and Olivia. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The great challenge of the acknowledgements page is that the number of people to be thanked greatly exceeds the space available for doing so; however, I will do my best and trust that any omissions will be attributed to this limitation and not my heart. I would like to thank God and my family for supporting me through this process. My faith has sustained me during the difficult moments of this process, particularly when the project felt large, unruly, and never-ending; however, more importantly, my faith allows me to rejoice with gratitude and thanksgiving now that I am done. I am a better person and scholar because of this experience. I am grateful to my beautiful wife, Michelle, and our children, Alexander and Olivia, who have been continuous sources of encouragement and love. This project would not have been possible without you, and it means nothing without you. I thank my parents, Rev. William McKinley Freeman and Mrs. Carolyn Cooper Freeman, for instilling in me the value of education. I also thank my sister, Lanniece Hall, and all of my family members for attending graduation “30-deep” and sharing their love and support for me with the world. Thanks to my Union Baptist Church family in Orange, NJ. Dr. Nancy Marie Robertson is the best chair in the world! I am grateful for her patience, confidence, wise counsel, cogent recommendations, gentle yet stern prodding, and unconditional support throughout this process. She challenged my thinking and writing in powerful ways that helped me to develop my voice. I appreciate each of my committee members. I thank Dr. Andrea Walton for pushing me to grow as a writer, urging me to study Madam Walker, and shaping my development as a scholar. I thank Dr. Modupe Labode for always showing up as a v supportive presence at my public talks about Madam Walker. I thank Dr. Marybeth Gasman for her support and the inspiration she has provided me. I want to thank Dr. Les Lenkowsky for recruiting me into the doctoral program, and Dr. Dwight Burlingame for directing my plan of study and supporting my full development as a scholar in teaching, research, and service. Dr. Greg Witkowski has provided critical advice for my professional development. I want to acknowledge and thank Dr. Tim Seiler, who gave me the honor of working for The Fund Raising School. I appreciate Dr. Patrick Rooney’s faith in me, and am grateful to Dr. Eugene Tempel and the faculty and staff of the School. I thank the “Apollo Class,” my Ph.D. cohort members, Suzann Lupton, Joe Palus, and Tamaki Onishi, as well as my doctoral colleagues Wayne Hilson, Jr. and Kristin Norris. I owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Emmett Carson for his seminal works which launched the contemporary study of African American philanthropy and inspired me. It was exciting to learn from him that he keeps a picture of Madam Walker in his office and has been waiting for a study of her philanthropy—I hope my study does not disappoint. I want to thank A’Lelia Bundles, Madam Walker’s great-great granddaughter and chief biographer, for meeting with me about this project, and encouraging me and sharing primary sources. I thank Wilma Moore and the Indiana Historical Society for supporting my research, and the staff at the Yale University Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library. I thank Dr. Khaula Murtadha, Dr. Lilya Wagner, Dr. Annie Coleman, Dr. Nancy Butler, and Dr. Linda Keys. Thanks to Dr. Sheila Foor, Dr. Judith A. W. Thomas, Dr. Ropo Sekoni and the rest of my faculty from Lincoln University of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for planting the seeds for this achievement over twenty years ago. vi Tyrone McKinley Freeman GOSPEL OF GIVING: THE PHILANTHROPY OF MADAM C.J. WALKER, 1867-1919 This dissertation employs a historical approach to the philanthropic activities of Madam C.J. Walker, an African American female entrepreneur who built an international beauty culture company that employed thousands of people, primarily black women, and generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual revenues during the Jim Crow era. The field of philanthropic studies has recognized Walker as a philanthropist, but has not effectively accounted for how her story challenges conventional understandings of philanthropy. I use historical methods and archival research to determine what motivated and constituted Walker’s philanthropic giving to arrive at three main conclusions. First, Walker’s philanthropy can be best understood as emerging out of a moral imagination forged by her experiences as a poor, black, female migrant in St. Louis, Missouri during the late 1800s dependent upon a robust philanthropic infrastructure of black civil society institutions and individuals who cared for and mentored her through the most difficult period of her life. Second, she created and operated her company to pursue commercial and philanthropic goals concurrently by improving black women’s personal hygiene and appearance; increasing their access to vocational education, beauty culture careers, and financial independence; and promoting social bonding and activism through associationalism, and, later, fraternal ritual. Third, during her lifetime and through her estate, Walker deployed a diverse array of philanthropic resources to fund African American social service and educational needs in networks with other black women. Her vii giving positions her philanthropy as simultaneously distinct from the dominant paradigm of wealthy whites and as shared with that of other African Americans. Her approach thus ran counter to the racialized and gendered models of giving by the rich white male and female philanthropists of her era, while being representative of black women’s norms of giving. Nancy Marie Robertson, Ph.D., Chair viii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 The Problem .................................................................................................................... 4 Historiography on Madam C.J. Walker .......................................................................... 5 Philanthropy in the United States .................................................................................. 12 Women’s Philanthropy and African American Philanthropy ....................................... 19 Women’s Philanthropic Biographies ............................................................................ 31 Women’s and Black Business History .......................................................................... 33 Black Social Welfare ..................................................................................................... 36 Developing an Approach to Understanding Madam Walker’s Philanthropy................ 41 The Study ...................................................................................................................... 44 Significance of Study .................................................................................................... 46 Scope and Limitations ................................................................................................... 47 Methodology ................................................................................................................. 48 Chapter Outline ............................................................................................................. 49 CHAPTER ONE ............................................................................................................... 53 Sarah Breedlove’s Early Life Experiences, Birth to 1889 ............................................ 55 Sarah Breedlove, Black Migrant in St. Louis, 1889-1905 ............................................ 67 Sarah Breedlove and the African Methodist Episcopal Church .................................... 77 Making Madam Walker, 1905-1919 ............................................................................. 97 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 100 CHAPTER TWO ............................................................................................................ 104 Viewing the Walker Company .................................................................................... 107 Company Overview ..................................................................................................... 116 Black Women and the Labor Market .......................................................................... 117 Lelia College and the Madam C.J. Walker Beauty Schools