Woman Making History: Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey was born in 1954 in Mississippi. She was raised by her grandmother on a farm until she was six, then lived in Milwaukee with her mother until she reached her teens. Winfrey ran away at 13, due to abuse and molestation, and after she was rejected from an overly full juvenile detention center, she was sent to live with her father in Nashville.

Winfrey's broadcast career began in her late teens, when she got a job at a Nashville radio station. She later worked in local television while attending Tennessee State University. In 1976, she moved to Baltimore to become a news anchor, and she was soon serving as a cost-host of a local talk show.

In 1984, Winfrey moved again, this time to Chicago, to take a job hosting a local talk show, AM Chicago. In 1985, the format of the show was expanded and it was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show. It has been seen nationally since 1986.

The Oprah Winfrey Show became the number one talk show in the nation in less than a year. It was immediately embraced by the public and critics alike, winning numerous Daytime Emmys in its first year of eligibility. In 1988, Winfrey won the International Radio and Television Society's "Broadcaster of the Year" award. She was the youngest person ever to receive the honor, and only the 5th woman.

Along with her show, Winfrey also started doing serious acting in the 1980s. In 1985, she portrayed Sofia in Steven Spielberg's adaptation of the Alice Walker novel The Color Purple. Her performance garnered both Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. She went on to form her own production company, Harpo Productions, in 1986.

By 1988, Harpo had acquired the rights to The Oprah Winfrey Show. This made Winfrey the first woman ever to own and produce her own talk show. Harpo went on to produce the television miniseries The Women of Brewster Place (1989), TV movies There Are No Children Here (1993) and Before Women Had Wings (1997), and the feature films Beloved (1998), an adaptation of Toni Morrison's novel, and Their Eyes Were Watching God (2005), an adaptation of the Zora Neale Hurston novel. Winfrey appeared in all of these productions but the last one.