English: Biography: As a child, Elizabeth Cardozo Barker spent her summers playing and working in and around the beauty shop run by her grandmother, Emma Jones Warrick, in Atlantic City, N.J. The founder of Cardozo Sisters Hairstylists in Washington, D.C., in 1928, Mrs. Barker was assisted in the business by two sisters, Margaret Cardozo Holmes and Catherine Cardozo Lewis (both BWOHP interviewees). The firm was influential in the growth of the Black beauty industry in the city, providing their employees with first-rate training and optimum conditions for career advancement. As a member of the Board of Cosmetology, Mrs. Barker saw to it that all beauty and barber shops were required to serve customers of all races; she was also largely responsible for the integratlon of beauty schools in the area and for the improvement of operator education, insisting that certificates be granted for various levels of expertise.

Description: The Black Women Oral History Project interviewed 72 African American women between 1976 and 1981. With support from the Schlesinger Library, the project recorded a cross section of women who had made significant contributions to American society during the first half of the 20th century. Photograph taken by Judith Sedwick
Repository: Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America.
Collection: Black Women Oral History Project
Research Guide: http://guides.library.harvard.edu/schlesinger_bwohp

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