The Life of Beauty Mogul Madam CJ WalkerI got my start by giving myself a start.-Madame CJ WalkerMadame CJ Walker, named Sarah Breedlove at birth, was born on December 23, 1867, in Delta, Louisiana, to Owen and Minerva Breedlove, both emancipated (freed) slaves and working on a cotton plantation. When she was six, Sarah's parents died after the area was struck by yellow fever, a deadly disease often spread by mosquitoes. The girl then moved to Vicksburg to live with her sister Louvinia and work as a housekeeper. She worked hard from a young age, was extremely poor, and had few educational opportunities. In order to escape the terrible environment created by Louvinia's husband, Sarah married Moses McWilliams when she was only fourteen years old. At eighteen, she gave birth to a daughter whom she named Lélia. Two years later, her husband died. Sarah then decided to move to St. Louis, Missouri, where she worked as a laundress (a woman who washes people's clothes for work) and other domestic jobs for eighteen years. She joined St. Paul's African Methodist Episcopal Church and enrolled her daughter in public schools and Knoxville College. Sarah, who was barely literate (able to read and write), was particularly proud of her daughter's academic achievements. In her late 30s, Sarah suffered from hair loss due to a combination of stress and harmful hair care products. . After experimenting with various methods, she developed her own formula that allowed her hair to grow back quickly. She often said that after praying for her hair, she was given the formula in a dream. When friends and family members noticed Sarah's hair growth, they began asking her to replicate her product for them. She began making her formula at home, selling it to friends and family, as well as going door to door. Sarah began advertising a growing number of hair care products with the help of her family and her second husband, Charles Joseph Walker, a journalist whom she had married in 1906 after moving to Denver, Colorado . She also adopted her husband's initials and last name as her professional name, calling herself Madam CJ Walker for the rest of her life, even after the marriage ended. Her husband helped her develop mail marketing techniques for her products, usually through African American-owned newspapers..