With these terms, a burning desire to find out and an optimistic worldview, Washington harnessed the ability of her femininity to grow to be one of the initially Black lady millionaires. She constructed a magnificence empire of goods, schools, publishing properties and prescribed drugs that endured the Good Melancholy and racial segregation in Atlantic Town, NJ.
“She has normally been my beloved historical character,” claimed Atlantic Town historian Vicki Gold Levi. “I’ve often valued her as an activist, businesswoman, creator, marketer and innovator. I thought she checked all the containers, and she did it in opposition to a whole lot of odds in individuals times with prejudice and segregation. She managed to increase previously mentioned it and command everyone’s regard.”
As a kid, Levi met Washington when her father, Atlantic City’s chief photographer, Al Gold, took her for a visit in the 1940s. When Levi is not able to recall facts of that encounter, she recalled that Washington was “very elegant” and superbly dressed.
Washington, regarded in her heyday as “The Madam,” will be posthumously inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame (NJHOF) this Drop. Washington will enter the Hall in the business class for her cosmological achievements together with fellow magnificence entrepreneur Madam Louise Scott of Newark, the founder of Scott School of Magnificence Culture and elegance salon chains. Festivities will be held almost and aired on My9NJ in addition to NJ PBS, radio and social media, in mid-Oct.
Washington joins a vast-ranging and distinguished listing of inductees which contains Alexander Hamilton, Martha Stewart, soccer gamers Harry Carson and Bart Oates, musician Southside Johnny Lyon and actor Jason Alexander. Founded in 2008, the NJHOF honors citizens who have made invaluable contributions to society, the Yard Point out and the environment.
Washington was amid 23 honorees in 5 classes this year who ended up selected from a pool of 50 nominees subsequent a public vote in May perhaps.
“We questioned New Jerseyans to help choose the up coming course of heroes and they delivered,” stated Jon F. Hanson, chairman of the NJHOF. “We are honored to celebrate the life and contributions of these noteworthy New Jersey luminaries and greats.”
Washington started the prestigious Apex News and Hair Company in Atlantic City in the early 20th Century. Afterwards, she launched Apex Relaxation, a nursing household in the same locale, and the Apex Golf Club in Galloway Township, which was one of the 1st African-American-owned golf programs in the nation. For all of these achievements, Washington was named one particular of the Most Distinguished Businesswomen at the New York World’s Good in 1939.
Washington was born in Beckley, WV, deep in the Appalachian Mountains. She took edge of prime instructional choices around the East Coast. Washington attended the Lincoln Preparatory School in Philadelphia, PA the Norfolk Mission School in Norfolk, VA (a privately funded general public faculty for African-American students in Norfolk) and Columbia University in New York Metropolis the place she studied state-of-the-art chemistry. This knowledge was practical in the building of her personal cosmetics afterwards on in her career.
Out of higher education, the normally-stylish go-getter started her occupation as a dressmaker. Afterwards, she opened a hairdresser store in Atlantic Metropolis. That transfer was achieved with displeasure from her mothers and fathers who wanted their daughter to consider up a much more functional position—something alongside the traces of schoolteacher.
Not 1 to conform to tradition, Washington adopted her cosmetology aspirations and founded the Apex Information and Hair Corporation in Atlantic Town in 1919 when she was 30 decades outdated.
Washington started her business the exact same calendar year that marked the demise of fellow elegance entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker.
Operating the one-space splendor shop by working day, Washington would go door-to-door at evening offering her Apex beauty merchandise. Before long, her corporation sold a wide range of products which includes urgent oils, warm combs, pomades, perfumes, beauty lotions and lipsticks. The exemplar’s empire grew to include splendor faculties in the US and other nations around the world, all specialised in educating with her merchandise. One particular of the most effective schools was The Apex School of Splendor in Philadelphia, which turned the oldest Black institution of elegance know-how in the nation. Each and every calendar year thereafter, far more than 25,000 college students (typically ladies) graduated from Washington’s colleges to embark on their possess entrepreneurial endeavors. Just about 500 staff worked in her merchants across the region with about 45,000 revenue brokers.
Atlantic Town was the website of Washington’s investigate and generation facility. There, 75 various items were being made, offering work opportunities for more than 200 individuals who labored as chemists, lab specialists, teachers and gross sales reps. By the mid-1940s, her splendor empire was estimated to have been really worth around $500,000. On the heels of her achievement, her burgeoning empire encouraged African-American companies to assistance black firms.
All this was achieved with the forward-thinker’s mantra: “Now is the time to strategy your potential by finding out a depression-proof organization,” a assertion Washington boldly declared amid Entire world War I, which was followed by the stock market place crash of 1929.
Her depression-evidence business was rooted in the energy of femininity and Washington’s advisement to her employees to “Be a lady,” in accordance to Etta Nelson Francisco who worked at Apex Drug Retailer in the company’s golden age. A practitioner of her possess preaching, Washington gave back again to the city. Following her recognition by the New York Globe Honest, the entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist donated 20 acres of farmland as a campsite for African-American small children. She supplied a girls’ residence to foster the academic factors of the Countrywide Youth Administration Software, a New Offer company that centered on offering operate and instruction for People among the ages of 16 and 25. At the time, it operated as portion of the Will work Development Administration and included a Division of Negro Affairs.
Aside from her charity function, Washington was active in political affairs. Her roles integrated delegate to the Republican Countrywide Conference, president of the Northside Business enterprise and Expert Women’s Club, and chair of the Industrial Department of the New Jersey Condition Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs. For the duration of Entire world War II, she served as secretary and treasurer of the New Jersey Welfare Commission on the Conditions of City Coloured Populace.
“I really imagine individuals require to know of her legacy and what she did for Atlantic Town, not in terms of supplying jobs, but the way she integrated the city,” mentioned Washington’s grandson Royston Scott.
In the mid-1940s, the city’s once-a-year Easter parade consisted strictly of white individuals ahead of Washington took it on herself to change that. As a winner of anti-racism, Washington sponsored a Atlantic Metropolis Boardwalk parade each and every Easter starting in 1946 to struggle for racial justice.
In accordance to Scott, when parade judges did not even appear at types representing Apex, Washington resolved to start out her personal Easter parade on the north facet of city. It became these kinds of a huge hit, entertainers eventually determined to integrate the parade, Scott said.
Washington spearheaded the parade right up until her demise from pure will cause in 1953. Her adopted daughter, Joan Cross Washington, grew to become an heir to the company right until it was sooner or later bought. (Joan Cross was reportedly Washington’s niece, in accordance to Scott.)
“When my mother inherited the organization, she realized the ins and outs of the company and grew to become the spokeswoman for Apex,” said Scott.
Scott – a film pupil at New York University in the 1980s – was approached by Levi to make the documentary about his grandmother. The documentary brief, “The Sara Spencer Washington Tale,” was produced in 2018.
“I grew up being aware of of her through Apex pics of The Madame and inherited apparel. The legacy was there. There was a lot of points packed absent simply because of the sophisticated earlier,” he stated.
In the basement of his late mother’s house, Scott retrieved catalogs, a trove of black-and-white photographs and a leather-based-certain duplicate of Apex News and Hair Magazine. Content from 1933 to 1938 contained stories of cap-and-gown-clad grads from Apex universities, fashionable hairstyles, and Apex hair products and solutions.
“She was a purpose product,” stated Scott. “She improved the lives of several in Atlantic Metropolis, primarily girls. Through the Melancholy, women worked as laborers and domestics at a time when individuals didn’t have careers and she enabled individuals to become self-ample. You could find out a trade that women of all ages constantly wished to glance good, and it was confirmed profitable.”
During investigate for the movie, Scott said he would “look at the footage and begin crying. Not just since of my family, but for the reason that I recognized how significant it was and relocating that she afflicted the life of all these black women in Detroit, Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, Chicago…”



Just about 70 yrs after her death, Washington’s legacy continues to have a profound result on the city exactly where it all started. Apart from her posthumous induction into the New Jersey Hall of Fame this October, The Atlantic City Arts Basis partnered with Avanzar, previously The Women’s Middle, to make a mural of “The Madame.” The undertaking was supported each the 48 Blocks AC and Avanzar’s “Girls as Leaders” initiatives.


Scott provided the picture for the mural, which he then donated to the Library of Congress.


Scott has also been in speak to with the African-American Museum of Historical past and Cultures at the Smithsonian so that images of The Madame can be archived and digitalized for students and many others fascinated in discovering about her remarkable daily life.


Washington’s image was spray-painted by muralist and photo realist BK Foxx on a developing façade on the southeast corner of Atlantic Avenue and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Washington is depicted in a fur coat, jewelry, pure-on the lookout makeup with her hair styled perfectly, and a dignified grin hunting outward. The picture was taken from a 1935 situation of Apex News and Hair Magazine.


“We are a social justice organization and our mission is to empower people today and families,” Fran Wise, Avanzar’s director of development, informed the Push of Atlantic City. “This mural undoubtedly empowers all of us.”

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