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Report on the Historical Significance of 1601–03 Lombard St. Cinderella Inn/Douglass Pharmacy/Apex Beauty College

Prepared by J.M. Duffin November 2017

Apex Beauty College, 1938.

Source: The Apex News 10, no. 3 (Summer 1938), 3.

1601–03 Lombard Street is a building that has historically significant associations with African American residents of the Rittenhouse-Fitler Historic District and the City of Philadelphia. These associations are strongest from around 1920 to 1956.1

1 The end date, 1956, is when Mercy Douglass Hospital sold the property (Deed: Mercy-Douglass Hospital to Samuel Cohen, June 29, 1956, C.A.B., No. 333, p. 96, City Archives of Philadelphia [hereafter CAP]).

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Origins of the Building

1601–03 Lombard Street was built in 1914 as a bar and restaurant by Victor J. “Vic” Hamilton and Samuel Kapnek.2 The building that previously stood at 1603 Lombard Street was a bar owned by Hamilton’s father-in-law, William Bell, who acquired the property in 1864, and passed it to Hamilton’s wife Sarah Ann.3 Kapnek (1878–1950) was a Russian-born Jewish business man who in the 1920s was involved primarily in the real estate business, which included selling houses to African Americans.4 Hamilton (1871–1944) was an Irish-born saloonkeeper and Philadelphia political boss in the Seventh Ward.5 He and Hamilton also formed a construction company in 1919.6 1601–03 Lombard Street was turned over to what was likely a straw party in 1920.7

African American Residents in the Rittenhouse-Fitler Historic District W.E.B. DuBois’s seminal 1899 study, The Philadelphia Negro, is well known. While at the University of Pennsylvania, DuBois did pioneering work in the emerging discipline of sociology, studying the history and contemporary conditions of the African American population of Philadelphia. He conducted a detailed study of the African Americans who lived in the Seventh Ward, which in 1890 had the largest population of African Americans in Philadelphia. The Seventh Ward ran between Spruce and South Streets, from S. 7th Street to the Schuylkill River on the west. DuBois did a house-by-house survey of the ward’s African American inhabitants, asking them a set of questions and mapping out the results. His map provides invaluable insight into the living conditions and locations of the city’s African American population.

2 Philadelphia Building Permit No. 901 of 1914 (February 9, 1914), CAP; Deed: Victor J. Hamilton, of the city of Philadelphia, saloon keeper, and Sarah A.B., his wife, to Samuel Kapnek, of the same place, 14 November 1913, Philadelphia Deed Book E.L.T., No. 337, p. 21, CAP. 3 Deed: Victor J. Hamilton, of the city of Philadelphia, and Sarah A.B., his wife, to Samuel Kapnek, of the same place, 10 November 1913, Philadelphia Deed Book E.L.T., No. 227, p. 471, CAP. 4 “Samuel Kapnek,” Jewish Exponent, August 25, 1950; Advertisement “Colored Homebuyers,” Philadelphia Inquirer, November 4, 1923. 5 “Victor J. Hamilton,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 20, 1944. Hamilton also held positions as Deputy Chief Coroner and chief clerk of the Inheritance Tax Division of the Register of Wills. 6 “New State Charters,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 9, 1919. 7 Deed: Victor J. Hamilton and Sarah, A., his wife, and Samuel Kapnek and Annie, his wife, to James Moore, 23 December 1920, for $1, Philadelphia Deed Book J.M.H., No. 996, p. 412, CAP. This deed included several properties that Hamilton and Kapnek owned at that time.

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W.E.B. DuBois’ Map of the 7th Ward Showing Distribution of African American Inhabitants, 1898. Working- class households are marked in green, the middle-class ones in red, and “criminal classes” in black. Rittenhouse-Fitler Historic District boundary superimposed in blue. Subject property within red circle.

As DuBois’s map illustrated above demonstrates, portions of the southern boundary of the Rittenhouse-Fitler Historic District extend into the historic African-American neighborhood that centered along South and Lombard Streets. DuBois describes the immediate area by 1601–03 Lombard Street as follows:

Beyond Broad, as far as Sixteenth, the good character of the Negro population is maintained except in one or two back streets [e.g. Gulielma (Rodman) Street]. From Sixteenth to Eighteenth, intermingled with some estimable families, is a dangerous criminal class.… North of Lombard, above Seventeenth, including Lombard street itself, above Eighteenth, is one of the best Negro residence sections of the city, centring [sic] about Addison street.8

The “good character” of the African American presence was strengthened by institutions

and key businesses that came to Lombard Street. The Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital (buildings no longer extant) came the 1500 block of Lombard in 1895. The Keystone Aid Society (building no longer extant) at the southeast corner of S. 16th and Lombard Streets housed a number of African American organizations in the first half of the twentieth century, such as the offices of Eden Cemetery and the first NAACP permanent branch office.9

8 W.E. Burghardt DuBois, The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study, Publications of the University of Pennsylvania Series in Political Economy and Public Law, no. 14 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1899), 61. 9 “Deny Keystone Society, Provident Mutual Merger,” Philadelphia Tribune (hereafter PT), December 6, 1955; “NAACP Branch to Open Permanent Office Here,” PT, April 4, 1942. The site was also the former location of Magnolia Hall that was a meeting place for many African American groups, mostly political, in the late nineteenth century.

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Percentages of Non-White Dwelling Units by Blocks, 1940. Numbers in blocks indicate: number of non-white units / total units. Subject property within red circle. Source: Sixteenth census of the United States: 1940. Housing, Supplement to the first series [Data for small areas] Block statistics for cities (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1941–42), table 3; map by J.M. Duffin Into the 1940s this area remained an important center of the African American community. The 1940 census housing data shows that there were still a number of blocks of houses that were predominately housing for African American residents and fall within the Rittenhouse-Fitler District.

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Percentages of Non-White Dwelling Units by Blocks, 1940. Shows the full boundaries of the Rittenhouse Fitler Historic District. Source: Sixteenth census of the United States: 1940. Housing, Supplement to the first series [Data for small areas] Block statistics for cities (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1941–42), table 3; map by J.M. Duffin.

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Cinderella Inn, ca. 1920–1925

Bobby Lee, Manager of the Cinderella Inn and Band Leader.

Source: Afro-American (Baltimore, Md), February 1, 1924.

The Cinderella Inn or Café appears at 1601–02 Lombard Street in the early 1920s. African American band leader Bobby Lee and Ethel Duncan were the managers of the club.10 Lee started playing the piano in movie theaters in Richmond, Virginia at the age of 13. Around 1914 he formed his own band which by the early 1920s became known as the Cotton Pickers.11 The club he formed on Lombard Street was a very popular place in its time. It is mentioned in a number of African American newspapers across the country and served a racially mixed clientele.12 Lee hired an African American interior decorator from New York, Harold Curtis Brown, to decorate the club with orange and black silhouettes.13 Lee’s band had a regular Philadelphia radio broadcast at the time he was operating the club which no doubt contributed to its broader notoriety. His popularity and skill was so great that when he was asked to go to New York to be a regular at the Cotton Club he refused and Duke Ellington got the job instead.14 As late as 1937, there were still references to the Cinderella Inn in national publications.15

10 Ethel Duncan in one sources is referred to as Mrs. John R. Duncan (“Bobby Lee Forfeits $1000 in ‘Philly,’ Case Grew Out of Liquor Charge At Cinderella Inn Where Leader of ‘Cotton Pickers,’ Was Manager,” Afro-American, April 11, 1925). 11 “Preferred Music to Readin’ ’Ritin’ and ‘Richmetic:’ Bobby Lee Now heads Philadelphia Band Which Radios Music Every Saturday Night,” Afro-American, January 25, 1924. 12 “Says Ziggy,” Chicago Defender, January 10, 1925 – refers to the club’s “ofay patronage.” 13 Floyd J. Calvin, “New York Has Beautified Many Fine Homes: Harold Curtis, Boston Art Grad, Pleases East’s Elite With Work,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 6, 1931. 14 Diane Delores Turner, “Organizing and Improvising: A History of Philadelphia’s Back Musicians’ Protective Union Local 274, American Federation of Musicians,” Ph.D. diss. (Temple University, 1993), 127. 15 “Band Reviews: Bobby Lee and His Cotton Pickers,” Billboard, July 3, 1937.

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A number of African American artists and performers likely worked at the club. The most notable is Josephine Baker (1906–1975). According to some of her biographies and a 1936 Philadelphia Tribune article, she performed in a chorus line occasionally at “Vic Hamilton’s Cabaret” for Bobby Lee in 1922.16 It was her “comical antics at the end of the line” that got her much attention.17 While working at the Cinderella Inn she heard from another chorus line member, Wilsa Caldwell about a show called Shuffle Along that was in Philadelphia and going to New York.18 Many biographers present this as a pivotal moment in her career that got her to New York which led to her subsequent international career.

The fortunes of the club appear to have changed around 1925. In February 1925 the

Club was raided by the Philadelphia Police and shut down because of the sale of alcohol and late opening hours. This was part of a crackdown on illegal alcohol in Philadelphia’s notorious clubs and speakeasies in 1924/25 by Smedley Butler, a retired Marine Corps general whom Mayor Kendrick brought in to clean up the city.19 After paying a $1,000 fine, the club was allowed to reopen.20 Likely the club’s connection with Vic Hamilton, who was the powerful Seventh Ward boss at this time and had taken back the title to the property in 1924, was instrumental in getting the club up and running again.21 It is uncertain how much longer the club lasted into 1925. Ads showing Bobby Lee and his band on tour later in 1925 suggest that it did not continue along the same lines as it did before.22 There appears to have been an attempt in July 1934 to revive the club but it quickly fell apart.23

Lee was a popular band leader in Philadelphia into 1940s playing a number of venues across the city, such as the Palais Royal and Parrish Café, and also in Atlantic City, Sea Girt and Asbury Park, New Jersey.24 A number of well-known jazz musicians played with him early in their careers, such as: Wilbur de Paris (1900–1973) and his brother Sidney de Paris (1905–1967),

16 Ean Wood, The Josephine Baker Story (London: Sanctuary Publishing, Ltd, 2000), 44–45; Bryan Hammond, Patrick O’Conner, Josephine Baker (Boston: Little, Brown, 1991), 6; “Jo Baker Hides From Town Where She Made Her Start,” PT, January 23, 1936. 17 Mildred O’Neill, “Josephine Still ‘Toast’ at 60, Gown of Fox Skins costs 32 G’s,” Afro-American, March 7, 1964. 18 Wood, Josephine Baker Story, 44; Peggy Caravantes, The Many Faces of Josephine Baker: Dancer, Singer, Activist, Spy (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2015), 19–20 19 Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, s.v. “Prohibition,” by Annie Anderson, http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/prohibition/, accessed October 31, 2017. 20 “Bobby Lee Forfeits $1000 in ‘Philly,’ Case Grew Out of Liquor Charge At Cinderella Inn Where Leader of ‘Cotton Pickers,’ Was Manager,” Afro-American, April 11, 1925. 21 “Seventh Ward Clubs Raided, Liquor Seized, ‘Vic’ Hamilton’s Bailiwick Invaded by Police, 3 Large Speakeasies and Lesser ‘Joints’ Entered,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 2, 1933; Deed: James Moore, single man, to Samuel Kapnek, 9 September 1924, Philadelphia Deed Book J.M.H., No. 2000, p. 57; Deed: Samuel Kapnek and Annie, his wife, to Victor J. Hamilton, 31 March 1925, Philadelphia Deed Book J.M.H., No. 2109, p. 54, CAP. 22 For example see Advertisement “Monster Clam Bake and Outing Tammany Hall United Colored Democracy,” New York Amsterdam News, September 2, 1925. 23 Advertisements, PT, July 12, 1934, July 26, 1934, August 2, 1934. 24 “A.C. Season Gets Under Way; More Talent Is Used,” Billboard, July 12, 1941’ Advertisement, Asbury Park Press, April 20, 1927.

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and Adolphus “Doc” Cheatham (1905–1997), and Jerry Blake (1908–1961).25 The band had a good reputation in Philadelphia and along the East Coast, probably in part to the fact that they were broadcast over the Philadelphia radio stations in the early 1920s. A 1937 Billboard review of Lee and his Cotton Picker’s says that he and his band “were the leading exponents of what West 52d street later covered at ‘swing’” and even mentions the Cinderella Inn days.26 In spite of his band’s high regard, it still faced discrimination in engagements with Philadelphia clubs.27

1934 Ad Announcing Revival of The Cinderella Café. Source: Philadelphia Tribune, July 12, 1934

Example of Bobby Lee’s Other Philadelphia Engagements, 1926. Source: Philadelphia Tribune, November 20, 1926.

25 “Doc Cheatham, Trumpet Call On An Empty Street,” The Guardian (London), June 4, 1997; Chip Deffaa, In the Mainstream: 18 Portraits in Jazz, Studies in Jazz, no. 11 ([New Brunswick, N.J.]: Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, 1992), 24–25; Turner, “Organizing and Improving,” 127. The 1924 Afro-American article lists the following band members: Charles Lee, Wilbur De Paris, Sidney de Paris, Coxie White, Herbert Faulkner, Dick Ward, Percy Glascoe, Andrew Meade and Albert Hughes. 26 “Band Reviews: Bobby Lee and His Cotton Pickers,” Billboard, July 3, 1937. 27 Turner, “Organizing and Improving,” 127–28.

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Douglass Pharmacy, 1925–1935

1926 Ad for the Pharmacy. Source: Philadelphia Tribune, September 4, 1926.

1930 Ad for the Pharmacy. Source: Philadelphia Tribune, August 7, 1930.

The next use of 1601–03 Locust Street that connected with the African American

community was the Douglass Pharmacy. The drugstore, which took its name from the nearby Frederick Douglass Hospital, opened in the first floor space around May 1925. The manager of the store was an African American, James Harvey Patterson (1894–1972) who was originally from Baltimore.28 After serving as a musician in World War I in France, Patterson went to Temple University and earned a PhG. The Philadelphia Tribune did a fair amount of advertising to promote the pharmacy. Typical of drug stores of the period, it also had a lunch counter and offered small meals. Patterson left the store by 1930 to work at the 30th Street Post Office and was replaced by Dr. Edward A. Bennett (1889–1966) and Dr. Eugene Thomas Rumsey (1888–1931).29 Rumsey who had studied at Hampton Institute in Virginia came to Philadelphia in 1920 and graduated from Temple University in 1924. 30 He went into partnership with Edward A. Bennett and had a least two drugstores that served Philadelphia’s African American community. It is possible the Bennett took over operation of the store after Rumsey’s death in 1931. According to the appraisal records for this property in 1944, the drugstore was the last use of the building before the Apex College of Beauty Culture moved into the building.

28 “Building a Drug Store on Merit,” PT, September 4, 1926. 29 1930 Federal Census, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Enumeration District 483, p. 6A. 30 “Local Druggist Succumbs After Brief Illness,” PT, September 24, 1931.

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1928 Tribune Ad for Major African American Community Drugstores.

Source: Philadelphia Tribune, September 27, 1928.

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The Apex College of Beauty Culture, 1935–1944

Sara Spencer Washington, African American Millionaire, Philanthropist and Founder of the Apex College of Beauty Culture and Apex Beauty Products.

Source: The Apex News 10, no. 3 (Summer 1938), 5. The Apex College of Beauty Culture was part of an important movement in the history of African Americans and women in America. By the 1920s, social attitudes and advertising presented beauty as something women could attain through cosmetic products, and not be limited by their natal characteristics. While beauty had been generally associated with attributes of white women, new ideals, possibilities, and products increasingly became available to black women. Female African American entrepreneurs emerged to offer products suited to their customers’ hair and skin characteristics, and black consumers used these cosmetics to explore and define their own standards of beauty. An industry arose to offer African American women cosmetics targeted to their needs. In customers’ pursuits, a new group of women trained in African American “Beauty Culture” would assist them. Thus African American women would take advantage of a new and transformative occupational opportunity to be trained, recognized, and licensed as beauticians. Their new status offered them the chance to enter the respectable black middle class. And they offered their customers assistance in their search to define their self-worth as black women.

Three African American women stand out as entrepreneurs in the beauty culture business. Sarah Breedlove Walker (1867–1919), known as Madame C.J. Walker, was one of the first African American women to tap into this trend and build a business that stretched across

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the entire United States. Walker, a sharecropper’s daughter, was married at the age of 14 and widowed at the age of 16 when her husband was lynched. Remarkably, Walker went on to become the first female African American self-made millionaire. She began business in 1906 with solutions she found to solve problems with her own hair, and quickly created an entire line of beauty products for African American women. Her products became wildly popular and she was very successful in motivating and encouraging African American women to be part of the beauty culture movement. Annie Minvera Pope Turnbo-Malone (1869–1957) also made a fortune with her own brand of beauty care products for African American women. Like Walker, she started out from a disadvantaged youth but was fortunate enough later in life to attend and graduate from high school at a time when few African American women did. She started her own beauty product business in 1900. By 1904, she was traveling across the country selling her products under the trade name “Poro.” By the 1920s, Turnbo–Malone had built a huge empire located in St. Louis and Chicago.31 The third woman to make a fortune and become a leader in the African American beauty culture world of the early twentieth century was Sara Spencer Washington (1889–1953). Madame Washington, as she came be known, was from Virginia. She graduated from Norfolk Mission College and pursued chemistry at Columbia University. She trained in beauty culture at York, Pennsylvania. Like Walker and Turnbo-Malone, Washington developed her own line of beauty products. She started selling them door to door beginning around 1914. In 1920 she founded the Apex News and Hair Company in Atlantic City. Her business grew tremendously in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, even as the Walker and Poro companies were declining. Though Washington suffered heavy financial losses in 1929, she was able to build up and expand her business during the Depression. By 1938 she had 10 Apex Beauty Culture Schools across the United States and one in South Africa. Washington, like Walker and Turnbo-Malone, was also keenly aware of the poverty within the African American community and worked in small ways to help solve them. As one biographer asserts, Washington’s “name was synonymous with philanthropy.”32 A key part of the growth of African American beauty products was the expansion of beauty parlors during the golden age of female-owned beauty parlors between the 1920s and the 1950s. Beauty parlors offered women a degree of autonomy and economic independence. For African American women, a career in beauty culture provided a much better opportunity than the work typically available to them as servants, cleaners, or washerwomen. As one historian has described it:

Beauty culture was one of the most prominent occupations available to black women from the early twentieth century up to the late 1960s. It was a unique occupation in which black women served other black women, and it was a job that offered African American women the hope that they might earn an

31 Juliet E. Walker, et al., Encyclopedia of African American Business History (Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999), 571–74, 581–85. 32 Walker, Encyclopedia of African American Business History, 593–94.

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independent living. Though few in number, African American beauticians were often highly visible and well-respected businesswomen in their communities. They worked hard to earn respect in their positions.33

The 1920s and 30s was a pivotal period in the efforts to professionalize beauty culture.

Many women pushed for states to create standards for training and licensing. African American women supported this effort. Pennsylvania passed a law in 1933 requiring the licensing of beauty shops and schools. Between 1934 and 1939, 14,432 beauty shops were licensed and 30,739 people (mostly women) trained in Pennsylvania.34

The training of African American women in beauty culture in Philadelphia followed the larger trend. Most African America beauticians practiced one of the three main beauty culture methods of hair dressing that were associated with their line products: C.J. Walker, Poro and Apex. The Walker method used a hot comb, the Poro a hair puller iron, and Apex a curling iron.35 Schools for training these techniques began with Mme. C.J. Walker’s Lelia College in Pittsburgh in 1908.36 The Poro schools started in 1917 and Apex schools in the early 1920s.37 Beauticians who may have started out as saleswomen for these products originally trained with other beauticians; however, when the professional licensing laws went into effect, students were drawn more to the larger product-supported schools. With 628 African American beauty shops in Philadelphia in 1930, there was a sizeable market for training students.38

The Apex College of Beauty Culture came to Philadelphia formally in 1928, though various practitioners in the city had been advertising Apex methods as early as 1921. Philadelphia was one of the first of three schools (along with Atlantic City and New York) established by Mme. Washington. Joseph T. Cross, Jr., Apex district manager in Philadelphia, described the enterprise to a Pittsburgh reporter: “While the headquarters and laboratories of the company are in Atlantic City, we Philadelphians like to claim it – and its parent – as our own for this city was the first to recognize the worth of Mme. Washington’s idea and to support it.”39 The first advertisements for the school appeared in the fall of 1928 and state that the school was

33 Susannah Walker, “‘Independent Livings’ or ‘No bed of Roses’? How Race and Class Shaped Beauty Culture as an Occupation for African American Women from the 1920s to the 1960s,” Journal of Women’s History 20, no. 3 (2008): 79. 34 “Beauty Culture Schools,” Pennsylvania Public Education Bulletin 6, no. 6 (February 1939): 22. 35 Clay Claiborne, “She Can Write a Check in 7 Figures: Sara Spencer Washington Makes Women Prettier and 45,000 Agents Aid Her,” Afro-American, July 5, 1946. 36 Walker, Encyclopedia of African American Business History, 583. 37 Walker, Encyclopedia of African American Business History, 573. 38 Ethel Erickson, Employment in Conditions in Beauty Shops: A Study of Four Cities, Bulletin of the Women’s Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor, No. 113 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1935), 37. 39 “Beauty Culture Declares Apex Head,” The Pittsburgh Courier, December 22, 1928. There is a report as early as 1921 of a local woman (Mme. James Spears of 1541 N. Camac St) organizing a class in the “Apex Beauty Culture,” as well as an advertisement for Mme. V.V. Maginley’s Hair Dressing School at 1906 South St. teaching both the Apex and Mme. C.J. Walker systems (“Announcement,” PT, June 11, 1921; Advertisement, PT, April 9, 1921).

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located at 700 S. 17th Street (17th and Bainbridge; no longer extant).40 The following year, 16 students were graduated from the school at a ceremony held at the auditorium of St. Peter Claver’s Roman Catholic Church.41 In spite of the economic challenges of the Great Depression, the school grew steadily. In 1932 there were 48 graduates and by 1933, the school had the largest enrollment of any beauty culture school in Pennsylvania.42 The importance of the school was recognized within Philadelphia’s African American community, as is evident by the participation of local churches that provided space for graduation exercises. Local clergy, such as Rev. Calvin D. Dixon of Allen AME Church and Rev. Henry P. Jones of Mother Bethel AME Church, moreover, spoke at these ceremonies.43

Ad Announcing the Opening of the Apex College at 16th and Lombard, 1935.

Source: Philadelphia Independent, May 26, 1935.

By 1935 the enrollment of the school had grown so much that the State Inspector told Apex that they needed to find more space for their students.44 To assist her in locating suitable property, Mme. Washington turned to Raymond Pace Alexander (1898–1974), a prominent 40 Advertisement, PT, September 27, 1928. 41 “16 Awarded Diplomas By Apex School,” PT, February 28, 1929. Mme. Washington was the master of ceremonies. 42 “48 Graduates Receive Diplomas,” PT, October 20, 1932; “1,000 Apex Student Beauty Schools Located in 9 Cities; Company Lost $46,000 in Closed Banks; Graduates Throughout the Country Total 20,000; Twenty-Pass Pennsylvania Board,” Afro-American, 29 June 1935. 43 “48 Graduates Receive Diplomas,” PT, October 20, 1932; “Thirty-five Graduate At Apex Beauty School,” PT, June 22, 1933. 44 Letter from Sara Spencer Washington (hereafter SSW) to Raymond Pace Alexander (hereafter RPA), March 19, 1935, Box 47, Raymond Pace Alexander Record Group, Alexander Family Papers (hereafter RPA Papers), UPT50 A374, University and Records Center, University of Pennsylvania (hereafter UARC).

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African American Philadelphia attorney, with whom she already had a business relationship. Alexander located the building at S. 16th and Lombard Streets. He was familiar with it because he had tried to acquire it for the Philadelphia Tribune in the 1920s.45 In March of 1935, Mme. Washington entered into a lease with Provident Trust Company, to commence on April 15, 1935.46 The Apex School moved quickly to convert the former pharmacy and club into a beauty culture school, and eventually spent close to $6,900 on improvements to the building.47 The school moved and officially opened at this site on May 28, 1935. The day-long event concluded with a dedication ceremony at 8:30 PM at which Prince L. Edwoods, advertising manager of the Philadelphia Tribune, acted as master of ceremonies, Rev. John R. Logan, Sr. of St. Simon the Cyrenian Episcopal Church offered the invocation, and Raymond Pace Alexander introduced Mme. Washington. 48 Several other leading figures of Philadelphia’s African American community spoke at the event: Major Richard Robert Wright, Sr., (1855–1947), founder of the Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth in Savannah and the Citizens and Southern Bank and Trust Company in Philadelphia; Edward W. Henry (1872–1946), the second African American magistrate appointed in Philadelphia and a United States Congressional candidate in 1932; Dr. John P. Turner (1885–1958), Chief Surgeon at Frederick Douglass Hospital and the first African American to be elected to the Philadelphia School Board; J. Austin Norris (1893–1976), a local attorney, secretary of the Board of Revision of Taxes, and the founder of the Philadelphia Independent. The participation of such notables underscored the role that African Americans ascribed to opportunities that could enable women and their families to achieve respectable middle-class status—or, as W.E.B. Dubois would have suggested, families of “good character.”

Days before the official opening of the school on Lombard Street, the mortgage on the property had been foreclosed and sold at sheriff’s sale to the Provident Trust Company, the mortgage holder.49 Fortunately, the Apex School and their lawyer Alexander were aware of this situation in advance and had worked out an arrangement to enter into a five-year lease once the Provident acquired full title. The Apex School signed the new lease in December 1935, but when Provident offered to sell the property, Mme. Washington jumped at the prospect. Alexander was quickly able to negotiate the sale price down from $15,000 to $12,750, with $4,000 paid in cash and $7,250 to be paid through a five-year mortgage to the seller.50 Mme. Washington acquired title to the building in February of 1936.51 45 Letter from RPA to SSW, January 13, 1936, Box 47, RPA Papers, UARC. 46 Letter from RPA to SSW, March 25, 1935, Box 47, RPA Papers, UARC. 47 “Approximate Original Cost of Alterations to Adapt Building at 1601 Lombard Street to our Special Use,” Roland R. Randall Appraisal Report for Apex Beauty School, October 1944, Box 47, RPA Papers, UARC. 48 “Apex Opens School At New Site: Building Equipped With Latest Inventions For Beauty Culture,” PT, May 30, 1935. 49 Deed Poll: Richard Weglein, sheriff, to Charles C. Willis and Ella C. Heyl, trustees for Ella C. Heyl under the will of Mary Willis, 20 May 1935, for $75, Philadelphia Deed Book J.M.H., No. 3860, p. 457, CAP. 50 Letter from RPA to SSW, January 20, 1936, Box 47, RPA Papers, UARC. Alexander said that when he tried to buy the building for the Tribune in the 1920s the asking price was $50,000. 51 Deed: Charles C. Willis and Ella C. Heyl, trustees for Ella C. Heyl under the will of Mary Willis, to Sara S. Washington, of Atlantic City, New Jersey, 17 February 1936, Philadelphia Deed Book D.W.H., No. 75, p. 517, CAP.

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The new location on Lombard Street immediately helped the Apex College grow at an

incredible rate. In November of 1936 there were 85 graduates, in 1937, 112, and in 1938, 108.52 Growth allowed Mme. Washington to pay off the remaining $6,385 due on the mortgage a mere year after she had bought the property.53 By the early 1940s, the school was graduating an average of 100 students annually. In 1944, the graduating class rose to 200 students and appears to have continued at that rate into the 1950s.54 The student body was drawn from a wide area. In 1944, at least a third of the students enrolled in the school came to Philadelphia from the South specifically to study at the S. 16th and Lombard Streets Apex location.55

Ca. 1940 Graduating Class in Apex Hall. Source: The Apex News, courtesy of Royston Scott.

As the student body grew, so did the importance of the graduation ceremonies. These

events came to extend over two days and included separate graduation exercises and baccalaureate sermon.56 Nationally known African American leaders came to Philadelphia to be speakers at the ceremonies. These included: in 1937, Charlotte Hawkins Brown (1883– 52 “Apex Beauty College Graduates Well Trained Beauticians,” PT, November 19, 1936; “The 1937 Graduating Class Of The Apex Beauty College In Philadelphia,” PT, November 18, 1937; “No Substitute For Hard Work Speaker Tells Apex Graduates,” PT, July 7, 1938. 53 Mme. Washington did not like having to pay the 5% interest on the debt, particularly when the average rate of return for securities at that time was 3%. 54 “A. Norris Addresses Apex Graduates,” PT, June 17, 1944; “Apex School Lists 24th Graduation,” PT, June 5, 1955. 55 Letter from SSW to RPA, May 26, 1944, Box 47, RPA Papers, UARC. 56 “106 Diplomas To Apex Grads This Week: Baccalaureate Sermon Held For First Time By Local School,” PT, June 19, 1941.

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1961), an author, educator and founder of the Palmer Memorial Institute in North Carolina; in 1940, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (1908–1972), a civil rights leader and later New York Congressman; in 1941, Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1950), an educator, philanthropist and civil rights leader, as well as Armond Wendell Scott (1873–1960), a very popular Washington DC judge; in 1944, J. Austin Norris (1893–1976), an editor, a civil rights leader, and a lawyer in one of the oldest black law firms in the country (founded with A. Leon Higginbotham); and in 1945, Grant Reynolds (1908–2004), a World War II chaplain, civic rights activist, and a key force in the integration of the U.S. military.57

Ad for 1940 Commencement.

Source: Philadelphia Tribune, June 20, 1940

By 1940, the Apex Beauty School was the leading beauty culture school for African Americans in Philadelphia. Ten out of the 27 beauty schools in Philadelphia in 1940 were for and run by African Americans.58 Apex was by far the largest. The next largest was likely the Poro School of Beauty Culture, which operated nearby at 629 S. Broad Street in 1940.59 All of the other schools were fairly small locally run operations – not part of a larger beauty school chain – managed by African American women in houses and small store fronts throughout the city.60 These smaller operations graduated between 35 and 50 students a year during the 1930s

57 “The 1937 Graduating Class Of The Apex Beauty College In Philadelphia,” PT, November 18, 1937; “Minister Declares Race Is Badly Miseducated,” PT, July 4, 1940; “Apex Graduates To Hear Mary McLeod Bethune,” PT, June 5, 1941; “Mid-Term Apex Beauty College Graduating Class,” PT, August 13, 1941; “A. Norris Addresses Apex Graduates,” PT, June 17, 1944; Untitled article, PT, December 29, 1945. 58 “Beauty Culture Schools,” Pennsylvania Public Education Bulletin 7, no. 6 (February 1940):18–19. 59 The Poro School may date back to 1917 (“Poro School Offers Day, Night Courses,” PT, August 13, 1957). It had as many as 90 graduates in 1933 but those numbers dropped by the late 1930s (“Mrs. Malone Presents Diplomas To 90 Graduates Of Poro Beauty College,” PT, July 6, 1933; “Poro College Graduates A Large Class,” PT, July 28, 1938). The school closed in 1969 (Advertisement, PT, May 20, 1969). 60 The other schools were: Craig School of Beauty Culture in North Philadelphia founded by (Rev.) Helen E. (Craig) Goines (1898–1979) in

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and 40s. The largest among these was the Cartier Beauty School founded by Ruth Matilda Carter (ca. 1888–1979) in 1933.61 At its peak in 1946 it had 82 graduates, but for the other years reported the average was around 40.62

Ca. 1940 Visitor’s Day. Source: The Apex News, courtesy of Royston Scott.

1932 and closed after 1968 (“Philadelphia Profile,” PT, April 14, 1956; “New Community Program for B&Ps,” PT, July 2, 1968); Gladine School of Beauty Culture in South Philadelphia founded by Mrs. Gladys E. (Caldwell) Graves Emanuel (1902–1998) before 1932 and ceased to operate as a school after 1940 (Advertisement, PT, September 1, 1932); Kingrow School of Beauty Culture in South Philadelphia founded by Dr. Ida T. (Reed) Love (1888–1953) who had studied Mme. Washington’s methods before 1927 and closed around 1949 (“Clubs,” PT, December 8, 1927; Advertisement, PT, February 26, 1949); La Casa de Lindo School of Beauty Culture in West Philadelphia founded by Irene Langley in 1937 (“Formal Opening of Philadelphia’s Most Modern Beauty School,” PT, December 16, 1937); Royall & Scarr Spanish School of Beauty Culture in South Philadelphia founded by Apex trained Emma Ward Royall Seanell (b. ca. 1893) and her sister Lillian Scarr (b. ca. 1892) in 1928 (“Four Get Diplomas From Beauty Culture School,” PT, July 12, 1928); Skidmore School of Beauty Culture in West Philadelphia founded by Gertrude Ann (Johnson) Skidmore (1900–1996) in 1933, became a broader vocational school in 1941, closed in 1967 (“Skidmore School Holds Annual Commencement,” PT, December 3, 1936; Advertisement, PT, December 27, 1941; “Government Called ‘Villain’ In Skidmore School’s Death,” PT, May 30, 1967); Spriggs & Donaldson Beauty School in South Philadelphia founded by Nathaniel D. Donaldson (1900–1954) and his wife Lillian Spriggs (1906–1994) in 1929, closed in 1954 (“Spriggs and Donaldson A Saga of Cooperation,” PT, November 29, 1949; “Jack Saunders: ‘I love a parade’,” PT, September 24, 1954); Washington School of Beauty Culture in North Philadelphia founded by Edna (Fitherly) Washington (ca. 1898–1940) around 1931 closed around 1940 (“Makers Of Beauty,” PT, June 18, 1931). 61 “Cartier Beauty School Holds Commencement,” PT, July 4, 1953. 62 “82 Graduate From Cartier B. School,” PT, June 25, 1946; “1937 Graduating Class of Cartier Beauty School,” PT, June 24, 1937; “Cartier Beauty School Holds Commencement: Forty-One Graduates Urged To Make Best of Chosen Field,” PT, June 20, 1940; “Cartier School Holds Graduation Exercises,” PT, July 8, 1958.

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The Lombard Street building, particularly the auditorium on the second floor known as

Apex Hall, provided new opportunities for the Apex School to engage more with the beauty culture and African American communities. Just two months after the building was opened, the State Board of Examiners of Beauty Culture met at the school.63 Apex clubs and alumni groups also met here.64 The school regularly held open house events and even showed movies.65 The auditorium provided a space for dances and dinners both for Apex groups as well as others. Social events were common for high school children and young adult groups and sometimes drew hundreds of people. The Delta Sigma Theta sorority and Omega Psi Phi fraternity organized dances in the Hall.66 Numerous clubs and civic groups, such as the Better Business Bureau of the Citizens Civic League, Les Bonne Amis Club, the Selectee Liberty Mothers, and the Fairview Debs Golf Club met in the Hall.67

The Apex School was forced out of their Lombard Street building in 1944. The Federal government seized the property for war purposes because of a lack of adequate facilities for African Americans during the War.68 The government wanted the building to set up a venereal disease clinic for the Frederic Douglass Hospital, the African American hospital that was just down the street from the Apex School. The school received notice at the end of March 1944 that the property was going to be seized. Though Raymond Pace Alexander had several meetings with the District Attorney and the Federal Works Administration, both in Philadelphia and in New York, he was unable to persuade Federal officials to seek another site.69 The school had to scramble to find a building by the beginning of June and still continue its program for the over 100 students it had enrolled. To add insult to injury, the government was only willing to pay the Apex School $8,500 for the property. Alexander, however, contested the valuation and got the government to pay Mme. Washington $13,500 for the property.

Alexander’s brother Scholley helped the school find a location at 521–25 S. Broad Street. (This building is no longer extant.) The Apex School was able to open at this location in August of 1944. The formal dedication of the building was in June of 1945. Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown returned to Philadelphia to be the principal speaker. Tenor Luther Saxon (1916–2017), who had recently appeared in Carmon Jones, and Camilla Ella Williams (1919–2012), the first African American to receive a regular contract with a major American opera company, were present to sing at the ceremony.70 The School remained at this location until its closure in 1977.71

63 “State Beauty Culture Board To Meet Here,” PT, July 11, 1935. 64 “Phila. Apex Agents Meet,” PT, August 8, 1935. 65 “Moving Pictures Shown in Apex School’s ‘At Home’,” PT, 9 May 1940. 66 “Younger Set Activities,” PT, 10 November 1938; “School Gate Gossip,” PT, 4 April 1942; “The Young Set,” PT, 5 February 1936; “Otto McClarin in Grandtown,” PT, April 1, 1937. 67 Jack Saunders, “I Love A Parade,” PT, April 11, 1940; “Les Bonne Amies” [sic], PT, February 7, 1942; “Fairview Debs Dance,” PT, 25 January 1940. 68 “Apex Company Wins $13,500 Suit, Granted Sum for Building Seizure,” PT, November 4, 1944. 69 Apex Hair & News Company, 1944–45, Box 47, folder 7, RPA Papers, UARC. 70 “Phila’s Leading Businesses Welcome Apex, Plaque To Be Unveiled at Open House Ceremony,” PT, June 30,

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Acknowledgments: I would like to thank Royston Scott, Leslie Willis-Lowry, Sheila Jones and Donna Rilling for their assistance with this report.

1938 Ad Showing Locations of All Apex Colleges in the U.S.

Source: The Apex News 10, no. 3 (Summer 1938), 5.

1945. 71 “Apex School Forced to Close Shop,” PT, 18 October 1977.

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Apex School in Philadelphia in 1935 showing first and second homes of the school.

Source: The Apex News (June 1935), courtesy of Royston Scott

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521–25 S. Broad Street (Broad and Rodman Streets) Location (no longer extant)

Building School Moved to in 1944. Photograph by John W. Mosley.

Source Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection, Temple University Libraries.

Demonstrations at Apex School, either Broad Street or Lombard Street location.

Photograph by John W. Mosley. Source Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection, Temple University Libraries