Left top image: Maco Beauty Shoppe Operators Ada Dodson Motley, Odell Thompson, Irene Fox Huntley, and Dorothy Horne McCaskill pose at Maco Beauty Shoppe at 902 East Market Street, Greensboro, North Carolina in 1940.  

Right top photograph: A group of students present a gift to a man who is likely Edward London. This was probably photographed around Christmas 1954. 

Bottom left photograph: Family portrait of Edward London, Sadie Mack London, and daughter Evelyn

Photographs source: Digital Greensboro/ Greensboro History Museum

.

The Greensboro History Museum: 

 This collection centers on Maco Beauty College, Greensboro, North Carolina, its founders and its students which was established in 1935 by Sadie Mack and Edward D. London. The school trained over one thousand cosmetologists in its 34-year-history closing in 1969. 

Maco Beauty College was located at 505 E. Market St. initially, then London and Mack moved it to 800 E. Sycamore St. in 1941, which was an old hotel. The couple was able to feature a salon, dormitory, and product manufacturing.  The institution provided crucial vocational training for African Americans during the enforced segregation years, and its remnants helped form Dudley Products Inc.

Materials in the collection include correspondence regarding student enrollment and exam records, school bulletins, student newspapers, commencement programs, educational textbooks and lesson planning guides, photographs and an audio interview. Researchers interested in local African American history and institutions during segregation will find this collection of use.

.

SADIE MACK LONDON (ca. 1898-1942)

Sadie Mack, born in South Carolina in 1898, was drawn to the business of beauty from a young age and moved to New York City to pursue her passion. There, she learned cosmetology as well as product manufacturing at Poro Beauty College.

 Post graduation, she became licensed in the Empire State, but when her brother fell ill, Mack moved to Greensboro to care for him. While being her brother's caretaker, she opened her own business, Gate City Beauty Shop in her home. During this time she met a recently widowed tailor named Edward D. London (1894-1978). they dated and were married in 1930.

Soon after their marriage, the Londons opened a joint business at 812-814 East Market Street – she ran a beauty salon, and he operated a cleaning and pressing tailor shop. At this time, Sadie Mack London also began to teach cosmetology to other women, and she encouraged them to take the N.C. State Board of Cosmetics examination. Most of her unofficial students passed the examination and went on to careers in cosmetology.

In 1935, Edward D. London left the tailoring business and with his wife opened Maco Beauty College at 505 E. Market St. The first class graduated in 1936. Despite Sadie Mack London’s failing health in 1941, enrollment rapidly increased, and the school moved to a former hotel at 800 E. Sycamore St. In addition to classrooms and a beauty shop, this location provided space for dormitory rooms, a student kitchen-dining room, a recreation room, and a laboratory for manufacturing beauty products.

Sadie Mack London died in 1942, but Maco Beauty College continued to flourish under her husband’s direction. With the area around 800 E. Sycamore St. slated for redevelopment, the school moved to 229½ S. Elm St., above Schiffman’s Jewelry, in 1963. 

Edward London closed the school in 1969, and the remnants were sold to Dudley Products, Inc. in 1971. During the course of its existence, over one thousand students were trained at Maco Beauty College. Its graduates operated beauty shops, taught cosmetology and even operated their own beauty schools.

Sadie died in 1942, but, under Edward’s direction, the school flourished and, during its 34 years in business when it closed in 1969, trained over 1,000 cosmetologists. Maybe she was born with it, but it certainly didn’t die with her. 

.

EDWARD D. LONDON (1894–1978) was a prominent tailor and entrepreneur in Greensboro, NC, who co-founded the Maco Beauty College in 1935 with his second wife, Sadie Mack. 

It was the city's first beauty school specializing in Black hair care, 

Source: Greensboro History Museum Maco Beauty Shoppe and College Collection