Born in Richmond, Virginia, on July 15, 1867, Maggie Draper was the daughter of a former slave who was then a cook in the household of Elizabeth Van Lew. She attended the Lancaster School, graduated from the Armstrong Normal School in 1883, and then taught at the Lancaster School until her marriage in September 1886 to Armstead Walker, Jr., a building contractor. Thereafter she devoted her time outside the home to the Grand United Order of St. Luke, an African-American fraternal and cooperative insurance society founded in Baltimore in 1867. Working her way up through various local and general offices, Maggie Walker became executive secretary-treasurer of the renamed Independent Order of St. Luke in 1899. At that time the order had only 3408 members in 57 local chapters and was in debt.
Walker went to work with remarkable energy and business acumen. In 1902 she founded the St. Luke Herald to carry news of the order to local chapters and to help in the educational work of the order, especially the training of children in habits of thrift, industry, and hygiene. In 1903 she opened the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank, of which she was president. By 1924 the Independent Order of St. Luke boasted a headquarters staff of 50 who, working from a new 4-story building in Richmond, served a membership of over 50,000 in 1500 local chapters. The order╒s assets approached $400,000. In 1929╨1930 the Penny Savings Bank absorbed all other black-owned banks in Richmond to become the Consolidated Bank and Trust Company, of which Walker served thereafter as chairman of the board.
In addition to her work with the order, Walker helped found in 1912 and served as president of the Richmond Council of Colored Women, through which she helped raise large sums for the support of Janie Porter Barrett╒s Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls and for other philanthropies. Walker died in Richmond, Virginia, on December 15, 1934.
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