Today in History – December 23, 1867 – Birth of first self-made millionairess (Sarah Breedlove for hair straightner invention, products and services) .

Born in poverty in 1867 (left graphic is a sketch of her birth house) on the shores of the Mississippi River in northeast Louisiana, her parents, recenlty released slaves, died while she was a young child. Madame C.J. Breedlove Walker developed a conditioning treatment for straightening hair in 1905. She started by selling it and her other cosmetic inventions door-to-door. Using the proceeds from this financial success, in 1910 she built a factory in Indianapolis to manufacture her line of cosmetics. She became a millionaire and “one of the most successful business executives in the early half of the twentieth century”.

Although illiterate when she started her buisness, she took lessons in public speaking, penmanship and developed a striking personality, wearing fine clothing and employing a chauffeur-driven electric carriage. She was to establish a tradition of giving back to the community by contributing to African American orphanages, old-age homes, schools, colleges, and a new civil rights organization, the NAACP.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on women inventors, African American scientists and engineers or our engineering diversity website. For curricular resources, visit the Chemical Engineering Education community site.

Also on this date in history in 1975, Congress passes Metric Conversion Act. Also in 1986, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager complete the first non-stop circumnavigation of the world, nonstop, without refueling their plane, the Voyager. For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on metric conversion, airplane design and aeronautics, or Aeronautical Engineering Education.