Womenomics

Women in business is not a 21st invention - we need to celebrate those who came before us. For example:

Madame Clicquot Ponsardin

The first woman to run a champagne house — and she did a damn good job. Madame Clicquot, as she later became known, fashioned a new way of handling champagne that allowed the company to mass produce on a whole new level. A savvy businesswoman. Yes, the woman REINVENTED rosé.

Rebecca Lukens

The quintessential “woman in a man’s world,” Rebecca was born Rebecca Webb Pennock in Pennsylvania in 1794. Rebecca’s father died in 1824. In 1825, her husband died too. Rebecca was left in charge of the company — and it was near bankruptcy. But she handled it like a boss, becoming the United States’ leading manufacturer of boilerplates. She ran her empire until 1847, going on to write an autobiography and build a now historic home, known as Terracina, for her daughter as a wedding present.

Annie Malone

Annie Minerva Turnbo Malone is America’s first black female millionaire thanks to her hair care empire that blew up in the 1900s. Born in 1869 to parents who were runaway slaves, Annie grew up on a farm in Illinois. Annie sold her debut product, “Wonderful Hair Grower,” door to door in little bottles. By 1902, she had expanded her business to include three assistants who also sold her products door to door. Her marketing strategy included giving away free treatments to attract paying customers. In 1904, Annie opened her first shop in St. Louis and kicked off a product tour in the South 

Although Annie was obscenely rich, she was known for living modestly, and gave thousands of dollars to many organizations within the black community: the St. Louis Colored Orphans Home, the Howard University College of Medicine and the local black YMCA.
Madam C. J. Walker

Madam C. J. Walker, born Sarah Breedlove on a cotton plantation in Louisiana on 1867, is heralded as the first female self-made millionaire in America. And she had some very humble beginnings.

Sarah’s parents were recently freed slaves and, as the fifth child in her family, Sarah was the first to be born free. She lost both her parents early in her life, orphaned by age seven. She was consequently sent to live with her sister and brother-in-law in Mississippi where she made money picking cotton and doing household tasks.

Toward the end of the 19th century, Sarah suffered from a scalp disorder that was causing her to lose her hair. She started experimenting with different products (as well as at-home remedies) to prevent her hair loss and was eventually hired by Annie Malone (RESPECT THE LADY NETWORK!) as a commissioner agent to sell products.

The Madame C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company was solidly in the green, producing the equivalent of several million dollars today.

Devoted to providing upward mobility within the black community, Sarah founded education scholarships and donated to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Conference on Lynching, among others. In 1913, she donated an unprecedented amount of money from an African American to build a YMCA in Indianapolis.

Source: Daily Worth