Stephanie St. Clair: How a Black Woman’s Empire Influenced Lotteries

By Samuetta Hill Drew | For the Birmingham Times Stephanie St. Clair was a racketeer who ran numerous enterprises in Harlem, New York in the early 20th century. (WIKIPEDIA) As we continue to explore African American women and their influence and impact on our daily lives the name Stephanie St. Clair named surfaced. It was an unlikely name because most of the women in the past articles were inventors with U.S. patents or the like, but this was a woman who had invented a system which didn’t require a patent. It required a sharp mind, a strong will and a strong understanding of the U.S. economic system. St. Clair was a young woman born in Martinique, French Caribbean on Dec. 24, 1897. She was the daughter of a single mother named Felicienne who stories say worked very hard to send her daughter to school, but unfortunately, she died when Stephanie was 12 years old. This meant the end of her formal education, so  St. Clair had to work. She saved her money and moved to Montreal as a part of the 1910-1911 Caribbean Domestic Scheme, which brought domestic workers to Quebec. She soon migrated to the United States and continued...