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Self Made
- Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker
- Narrated by: A'Lelia Bundles
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
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Publisher's summary
Now a Netflix series starring Octavia Spencer, Self Made (formerly titled On Her Own Ground) is the first full-scale biography of “one of the great success stories of American history” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), Madam C.J. Walker - the legendary African American entrepreneur and philanthropist - by her great-great-granddaughter, A’Lelia Bundles.
The daughter of slaves, Madam C.J. Walker was orphaned at seven, married at 14, and widowed at 20. She spent the better part of the next two decades laboring as a washerwoman for $1.50 a week. Then - with the discovery of a revolutionary hair care formula for Black women - everything changed. By her death in 1919, Walker managed to overcome astonishing odds: Building a storied beauty empire from the ground up that would be run by four generations of Walker women until its sale in 1985, amassing wealth unprecedented among Black women, and devoting her life to philanthropy and social activism. Along the way, she formed friendships with great 20th-century political figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington.
“A’Lelia Bundles always knew, on some level, that this story was hers to tell. And she tells it with a controlled passion and an integrity that would have made Madam Walker proud” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution). “Well-paced and well-written...as much social history as biography, filled with the detail and texture of culture and politics” (The New York Times), Self Made is enriched by the author’s exclusive access to personal letters and records from the family collection. Bundles also showcases Walker’s complex relationship with her daughter, A’Lelia Walker, a celebrated hostess of the Harlem Renaissance and renowned friend to both Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston.
“More than a history lesson in her rise to fame, On Her Own Ground offers inspiration to women - regardless of race - on how to succeed against all odds” (Chicago Sun-Times).
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A.G. Gaston, the poor grandson of slaves, was born in the Deep South in 1892. Over the course of his extraordinary life, he amassed a fortune of over $130 million and a vast business empire. The story of his remarkable life is written with eloquence and grace by his niece, an Emmy¿ Award-winning journalist and her daughter, who holds degrees from Yale and Harvard.
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Black Gold = Standing Ovation
- By 2Fresh on 01-20-16
By: Carol Jenkins
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"The Rest of Us"
- The Rise of America's Eastern European Jews
- By: Stephen Birmingham
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The wave of Eastern European Jewish immigrants who swept into New York in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by way of Ellis Island were not welcomed by the Jews who had arrived decades before. These refugees from czarist Russia and the Polish shtetls who came to America to escape pogroms and persecution were considered barbaric, uneducated, and too steeped in the traditions of the "old country" to be accepted by the more refined and already well-established German-Jewish community. But the new arrivals were tough, passionate, and determined.
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Book 3 of 3
- By Etoile NEOhio on 11-15-22
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Why They Marched
- Untold Stories of the Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote
- By: Susan Ware
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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For far too long, the history of how American women won the right to vote has been told as the tale of a few iconic leaders, all white and native-born. But Susan Ware uncovered a much broader and more diverse story waiting to be told. Why They Marched is a tribute to the many women who worked tirelessly in communities across the nation, out of the spotlight, protesting, petitioning, and insisting on their right to full citizenship.
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a needed history lesson
- By Jerseycookie on 05-14-22
By: Susan Ware
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Eleanor
- By: David Michaelis
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 19 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In the first single-volume cradle-to-grave portrait in six decades, acclaimed biographer David Michaelis delivers a stunning account of Eleanor Roosevelt’s remarkable life of transformation. An orphaned niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, she converted her Gilded Age childhood of denial and secrecy into an irreconcilable marriage with her ambitious fifth cousin Franklin. Franklin Roosevelt transformed Eleanor from a settlement house volunteer on New York’s Lower East Side into a matching partner in New York’s most important power couple in a generation.
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Stands apart from other biographies of ER
- By Debra Malone on 11-20-20
By: David Michaelis
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The Hour of Fate
- Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism
- By: Susan Berfield
- Narrated by: Jennifer Woodward
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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A riveting narrative of Wall Street buccaneering, political intrigue and two of American history’s most colossal characters, struggling for mastery in an era of social upheaval and rampant inequality. Today, as the country again asks whether saving democracy means taming capital, the lessons of Roosevelt and Morgan’s time are more urgent than ever.
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Engaging
- By Jean on 06-08-20
By: Susan Berfield
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The Black Calhouns
- From Civil War to Civil Rights with One African American Family
- By: Gail Lumet Buckley
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Black Calhouns, Gail Lumet Buckley - daughter of actress Lena Horne - delves deep into her family history, detailing the experiences of an extraordinary African American family from Civil War to civil rights. Beginning with her great-great-grandfather, Moses Calhoun, a house slave who used the rare advantage of his education to become a successful businessman in postwar Atlanta, Buckley follows her family's two branches: one that stayed in the South and the other that settled in Brooklyn.
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The Black Calhouns
- By Marva on 10-15-24
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Murder at the Mission
- A Frontier Killing, Its Legacy of Lies, and the Taking of the American West
- By: Blaine Harden
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1836, two missionaries and their wives were among the first Americans to cross the Rockies by covered wagon on what would become the Oregon Trail. Dr. Marcus Whitman and Reverend Henry Spalding were headed to present-day Washington state and Idaho, where they aimed to convert members of the Cayuse and Nez Perce tribes. Both would fail spectacularly as missionaries.
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Good history; wanted more indigenous perspective.
- By Anonymous User on 07-06-21
By: Blaine Harden
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Martha Washington
- An American Life
- By: Patricia Brady
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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With this revelatory and painstakingly researched book, Martha Washington, the invisible woman of American history, at last gets the biography she deserves. In place of the domestic frump of popular imagination, Patricia Brady resurrects the wealthy, attractive, and vivacious young widow who captivated the youthful George Washington. And even as it brings Martha Washington into sharper and more accurate focus, this sterling life sheds light on her marriage, her society, and the precedents she established for future First Ladies.
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DAR Book Club
- By Kimberly Dillard on 12-26-23
By: Patricia Brady
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The Agitators
- Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women's Rights
- By: Dorothy Wickenden
- Narrated by: Heather Alicia Simms, Anne Twomey, Gabra Zackman, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 1850s, Harriet Tubman, strategically brilliant and uncannily prescient, rescued some seventy enslaved people from Maryland’s Eastern Shore and shepherded them north along the underground railroad. One of her regular stops was Auburn, New York, where she entrusted passengers to Martha Coffin Wright, a Quaker mother of seven, and Frances A. Seward, the wife of William H. Seward. Through exhaustive research, Wickenden traces the second American revolution these women fought to bring about, the toll it took on their families, and its lasting effects on the country.
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Excellent!
- By Nikki on 12-22-21
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Harlem
- The Four Hundred Year History from Dutch Village to Capital of Black America
- By: Jonathan Gill
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 19 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Harlem is perhaps the most famous, iconic neighborhood in the United States. A bastion of freedom and the capital of black America, Harlem's 20th-century renaissance changed our arts, culture, and politics forever. But this is only one of the many chapters in a wonderfully rich and varied history. In Harlem, historian Jonathan Gill presents the first complete chronicle of this remarkable place.
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Very Interesting.
- By Joyce Mirowski on 06-05-20
By: Jonathan Gill
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Soul City
- Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of an American Utopia
- By: Thomas Healy
- Narrated by: Larry Herron
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Author Thomas Healy resurrects a forgotten saga of race, capitalism, and the struggle for equality in this fascinating, forgotten story of the 1970s attempt to build a city dedicated to racial equality in the heart of “Klan Country”.
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awesome narrator
- By Arthur F. Jackson on 06-23-21
By: Thomas Healy
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Passing Strange
- A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line
- By: Martha A. Sandweiss
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Brilliant scientist and witty conversationalist, best-selling author and architect of the great surveys that mapped the West after the Civil War, Clarence King was named by John Hay "the best and brightest of his generation". But King hid a secret from his Gilded Age cohorts and prominent family in Newport: for 13 years he lived a double life - as the celebrated White explorer, geologist, and writer Clarence King and as a Black Pullman porter and steelworker named James Todd.
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Race and Identity
- By Roy on 03-22-10
What listeners say about Self Made
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- catriona
- 07-17-22
tedious telling
I wish this incredible story was told in a less stilted and tedious way. I persisted in listening because the historical details were important and interesting, but so disappointed with the telling.
I actually listened at 1.25 speed, and that made it more bearable
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- Ashley
- 05-24-20
Loved it!
I loved how in depth it went. We only learn about the top layer of Madam C. J. Walker's life but this book gives you more. I could see everything that she was saying. How could you not root for Madam C. J. Walker!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Bronx Brenda NYC
- 08-10-22
Great content & well researched subject matter
Excellent story! In depth and well written. Nothing like the Netflix movie which was very “Disney” like. This is the real, true story of a phenomenal human being. My only wish is that the Author had hired a professional narrator. Her reading was OK but entirely too dramatic. Emphasis on random words/phrases made it border on a comical reading. Still, I highly recommend it.
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- Mrs. C
- 09-05-21
Much better than the mini series.
Enjoyed listening to the history of a lesser known American or at least one that didn't show up in my history books as a child. Too bad the movie from this title didn't stay true to her life story which was way more interesting.
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- Anonymous User
- 03-28-20
Well Written History.
I throughly enjoyed reading Bundles’s work. It is a must read for anyone interested in a scholarly, yet entertaining account of the life and times of Madam Walker. The author does her ancestor much justice in demonstrating her role as major player in early 20th century race leadership and uplift.
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3 people found this helpful
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- LuLu
- 03-16-21
Interesting read
The performance and text of this story was enlightening. Taught me a lot about what growing up in the South as a black female was like. Painful at times but overall l enjoyed the book. I did feel there was far more attention given to the amount of money made than needed for the story to be told. Narration was even and enjoyable. I would recommend for a glimpse into history.
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- Lena Franklin
- 05-24-20
Great Story
I loved hearing all the history of this time period. Black women been bad ass.
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- mike
- 01-29-21
sueb
enjoyed reading about madame walker but found the reader voice annoying... very monotone and lacked decent expression. the reader was more of a documentary and an auto biography. highly recommend another version of the same book.
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- AnaisKarim
- 01-20-23
True Facts
I enjoyed listening to this book and learning the true facts that were left out of the Netflix series. If you are at all interested in facts over dramatic license, this is a must read! This time period does not get enough truthful evaluation so this book is also an invaluable work from a historical perspective. Read it!
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- Akau Anyieth
- 07-01-20
I loved it!
I loved it! Author and reader A'Lelia Bundles is thorough in her writing. she paints a clear picture of CJ Walker's life and the racial environment in which Ms Walker lived. If you want information more specific to CJ Walker with less information about the racial climate, then I recommend the African Americans of Achievement book about her, also by A'Lelia Bundles. If you want to know as much as possible, then this is the book. Or just get both, my personal choice.
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4 people found this helpful