Maggie Walker, The First Woman to Charter a Bank
Maggie Walker was ahead of her time as an African American woman in creating a bank for her community and fostering greater opportunities for women.
Hello, Talking About Money Community, I’m wishing you well. 🤗
While this post is not a book review, I do want to give a shout out to The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap by Mehrsa Baradaran. I am in the midst of reading this riveting book (maybe it will makes its way to a future post?) and while reading it I was struck by the biography of Maggie Lena Walker, of whom I had never heard.
It’s important to lift up the stories of people who inspire us, and especially the stories of people who fought for economic justice and wealth creating opportunities for others. By hearing their stories they might inspire you (or your clients) to greatness. What’s notable about Maggie Walker was that in 1903, she became both the first African American woman to charter a bank and the first African American woman to serve as a bank president. I know, right? Once I got to know Maggie Walker, I wanted to introduce her to you too.
A Rising Star in the Post-Civil War South
From information gleaned from the National Women’s History Museum, Maggie Walker was born to a mother who had been enslaved in Richmond, Virginia, in 1864. Richmond was a thriving city and served as the capital of the Confederacy in the Civil War. Once the war was over, Walker’s mother worked as a laundress while her stepfather worked as a butler at a Richmond hotel. Walker’s stepfather died prematurely (official records listed it as suicide while others believed that he had been murdered) and her mother was thrown into poverty, supporting her two children alone.
Walker helped her mother by delivering freshly laundered clothes to white households, and at the same time was able to attend a newly established public school in Richmond for Black children. Walker graduated from high school, attended teacher training, and went on to become a teacher. She worked for three years before being forced to quit once she got married.
Walker was also an active member of the Independent Order of Saint Luke, a fraternal organization for African Americans that provided burial assistance and later, life insurance. She held leadership positions there for 35 years, starting in 1899 through her death in 1934. Beginning in 1901 she served as the publisher of The St. Luke Herald newspaper. Walker used her leadership position as an opportunity to advocate for justice for African Americans and promoted their starting their own businesses in the post-Civil War South.
Using Her Talents to Fulfill Needs of Her Community
Maggie Walker was an entrepreneur. Her first business venture—stemming from her involvement in the Independent Order—was a community insurance company for women. In 1903 she went on to found the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank, the first woman of any race to charter a bank in the United States. Richmond’s first Black architect designed the building, and Walker had a number of female bank board members.
Fun (Not Fun) Fact: While women served in leadership of the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank, women as a whole were not able to own their own bank accounts until the 1970s.
Walker marketed her bank to not only adults but also to children, to whom she gave miniature banks so that they could save their money. She was quoted as saying:
Let us put our moneys together; let us use our moneys; let us put our money out at usury among ourselves, and reap the benefit ourselves … Let us have a bank that will take the nickels and turn them into dollars.
By taking deposits and making home mortgages, the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank contributed to the establishment of the black middle class in Richmond and led to the increase in Black homeownership in the city. In 1920, the bank held assets worth about $7 million in today’s dollars. By 1924 the Penny Savings Bank had grown to multiple locations and over 50,000 members. Remarkably, it even survived the Great Depression.
In 1930 the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank merged with another Black-owned bank and became the Consolidated Bank and Trust Company, the oldest continually African American-operated bank in the United States. It lasted until 2009 (alas, until the Great Recession did it in).
“Her Life’s Work Was to Uplift Women”
Once established as a successful professional, Walker advocated for the rights of African American women and fought against discrimination and segregation. She was a leader of the National Association of Colored Women, the Virginia Industrial School for Girls, and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Walker also used her platform to encourage African American women to vote and worked on political campaigns.
Maggie Walker died due to complications from diabetes in 1934 at the age of 70. Think of what more she could have accomplished had she had more time.
It’s difficult for me to express what impressed me most about Maggie Walker. She persevered to go to high school—and then college—as a black girl in the post-Civil War South. This was a time when few students of any race attended school past the 8th grade. She became a teacher. She was an active volunteer in progressive organizations. She witnessed the economic problems that her community was facing and worked to solve them on a large scale. She created opportunities for other Black households to attain middle class status at a time when very few were able to do so. Maggie Walker was a remarkable woman.
