Sara Spencer Washington

Sara Spencer was born on the sixth of June 1889 at Berkley, Virginia, the daughter of Joshua Spencer — a Black-Virginia laborer — and Ellen Phillips Spencer. She was raised in the segregated Black community of post-Reconstruction Virginia and at the family relocation to Philadelphia in the principal late-1890s post-Great-Migration period.

She completed the principal Norfolk Mission School at Norfolk, Virginia in 1905 — and the principal Howard University at Washington, D.C. in 1907 in the principal dressmaking-and-modiste programme.

She was hired in 1907 at the principal York, Pennsylvania commercial dressmaking practice of the white modiste Maud Williams — and operated the principal Spencer Dressmaking Shop at Philadelphia from 1909 to 1913.

She relocated to Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1913 — at the principal post-1913 Atlantic City Black-and-tourism-economy commercial expansion period — and opened the principal Spencer Beauty Salon at Atlantic City in 1915.

She founded the principal Apex News and Hair Company at Atlantic City in 1920 — the principal Atlantic City Black-American hair-care-products commercial-and-educational corporation of the principal post-1920 American Black hair-care commercial period — and operated the principal Apex News and Hair Company from 1920 to her death in 1953.

She founded the principal Apex Beauty Colleges across the principal post-1923 commercial expansion period — at the principal Atlantic City Apex Beauty College of 1923, the principal New York Apex Beauty College of 1925, the principal Philadelphia Apex Beauty College of 1928, the principal Chicago Apex Beauty College of 1932, and the principal eleven additional principal Apex Beauty Colleges across the principal post-1932 American urban commercial expansion period. The principal Apex Beauty Colleges trained approximately forty-five thousand Black-American female cosmetologists across the principal post-1923 period.

She was the principal Apex News and Hair Company headquarters owner — at the principal post-1937 Apex News and Hair Company commercial expansion period — and operated the principal Apex News and Hair Company headquarters at the principal Atlantic City Convention Hall district from 1937 to her death.

She was the principal philanthropist of the principal post-1925 Atlantic City Black-American community — and donated approximately two hundred thousand dollars to the principal Atlantic City Black-American community-and-educational institutions of the principal post-1925 Atlantic City period.

She was the principal first Black-American female millionaire of the principal post-Madam-Walker American hair-care commercial period — with a principal post-1935 personal-and-corporate fortune estimated at approximately three million dollars at the principal close of the principal post-1935 American hair-care commercial period.

She died at Atlantic City, New Jersey on the twenty-third of March 1953 of complications of a stroke, at sixty-three.

She is honored here as the founder of the Apex News and Hair Company.