Womanist consciousness: Maggie Lena Walker and the Independent Order of Saint Luke by Elsa Barkley BrownIn the first decades of the twentieth century Maggie Lena Walker repeatedly challenged her contemporaries to 'make history as Negro women.' Yet she and her colleagues in the Independent Order of Saint Luke, like most black and other women of color, have been virtually invisible in women's history and women's studies. This article recounts how in 1903 she founded the Saint Luke Savings Bank in Richmond, Virginia, and was thus the first woman bank president in the United States. The bank was also an opportunity to expand the very limited opportunities for black women--to give some the prospect of becoming bookkeepers, secretaries and clerks. White opposition led to the demise of a department store run by women from 1905 to 1912. Also recounted are Walker's many other accomplishments in the thirty-five years she served as head of the Order. (review by S. WHALEY)
Barkley Brown, Elsa. 1989. “Womanist Consciousness: Maggie Lena Walker and the Independent Order of Saint Luke.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 14: 610–33.