Sarah Spencer Washington (June 6 1889-March 23,1953)

Born in Berkley,Virginia, to Joshua and Ellen (Mother Spencer) Philips, Sarah received her early education in the public schools of Berkley and attended the Lincoln Prep School in

Philadelphia.As a young woman,she walked seven miles a day from her home in Berkley to attend school.She graduated from the Norfolk Mission College.Her first job was in the Norfolk printing office of the Elk leader Finley Wilson.She also later studied business administration at Columbia University and described herself as a devout Christian Scientist and full-fledged Republican.She admired Dr.Charlotte Hawkins Brown,president of the Palmer Memorial Institute of Sedalia,North Carolina,and sent her grandniece and adopted daughter, Joan Cross Washington,there for her education.Sarah and her mother moved from Virginia to Pennsylvania in the early years of the twentieth century.They had settled in Atlantic City by 1911 because Mother Spencer needed the salt air for her health.In Atlantic City,Sarah made bags out of beads and sold them to her mother's wealthy employers while her mother worked as a domestic.Sarah opened a small hairdressing shop in 1916 just a few doors from building she would one day own at the corner of Indiana and Arctic avenues.She began to experiment with new cosmetics ideas,and later in her career,she was granted a patent for a new system of removing excessive curl from hair the hair of black women.During World War I,she married Isaac Washington,the couple separated in 1919.That same year,she founded the Apex News and Hair Company and her mother served as treasurer until her death in 1937.Sarah worked days in her beauty salon and taught students her trade at the same time.During the evenings, she canvassed the city with her cosmetic products.She stated with a one-room beauty shop and by the mid-1940s had a business worth half a million dollars. A hair cosmetics firm, the Apex Beauty Products Company was by far the largest and most significant of New Jersey's black-owned businesses,and by the mid-1930s it had emerged as one of the nation's leading black manufacturing companies.Apex operated eleven beauty schools in the United States,with franchised schools in foreign countries, and graduated approximately four thousands students annually.As hundreds of Apex graduates opened their own beauty shops in big cities and small towns,the triangular, blue-and-white Apex trademark become a recognizable symbol representing a popular competitor in the cosmetology industry.From basic hair products,such as the hot comb,pressing oils, and pomades,the firm ballooned into perfumes,rouges,lipsticks,skin fresheners,and beautifying creams,all prepared especially for African Americans women. Sarah was by no means the first manufactures such as line; she launched her company in a depression-ridden post-World War i economy.She was most noted as the creator of the slogan "Now is the time to plan your future by learning a depression-proof business."From her perspective,beauty culture was the most lucrative profession one could enter."As long as there are women in the world,there will be beauty establishment"was her favorite saying.The demand for beauty artists had always been greater than the supply.Positions were always open to the beginner in the profession, and usually it was not long before the beginner accumulated enough money to open her establishment become independent.At its zenith,Apex was producing more than two hundreds different beauty items in its own laboratories in Atlantic City, using nothing but the finest and most expensive ingredients. The company bought oils, petrolatums, and containers in freight-carload lots from the world's leading manufacturers.The Apex empire was reported to have employed nearly five hundred regular persons in well-paying position in many cities.Furthermore, it had an estimated forty-five thousands active sales agents throughout the world whose livelihood depended on the sales of its products and the Apex method of "Scientific Beauty Culture."The Atlantic City office and facyory had eighty-seven employees,including chemists, laboratory technicians,clerks,bookkeepers, chauffeurs, and beauticians.In 1939, because of her great achievements,Sarah was awarded a medallion at the New York World's Fair. This medal represented her attainment of international stature in the business world.Among her business ventures the Apex News and Hair Company;the Apex Publishing Company,which published Apex News for beauticians and agents;Apex Laboratories; Apex Drug Company;and Apex Beauty Colleges.From her Atlantic City Shop and First School,the Apex Schools of Beauty Culture spread to 525 South Broad Street,Philadelphia;Forty-Seventh and Parkway,Chicago;163 West Kinney Street,Newwark,New Jersey;895 Fulton Street,Brooklyn;Auburn and Butler,Atlanta;Eutaw and Riddle Streets,Baltimore;Third and Clay Streets,Richmond,Virginia;1417 U Street,NW,Washington DC;Bantu World Building,Johannesburg,South Africa;and several Caribbean locations.The Philadelphia Apex School was built from the ground up by Sarah and dedicated in May 1945.It was torn,down in 1980 to make way for redevelopment in the area.Before death.she sold all of the Apex schools to their directors.Sarah suffered a paralytic stroke in 1947 and retired from many of her activities.She died leaving, a number of real estates properties.Sarah is buried Pleasantville Cemetery outside of Atlantic City. When she died, her estates was worth more than $ Million.She also left an impressive record of invollvement in social,civic,and political activities.She gave scholarships to ambitious students throughout the country and contributed large sums to worthy institutions and organizations serving all races and creeds.During her lifetime,Sarah was known as a philanthropist, and those close to her called her the "genius with the Midas touch."