Name: Dean’s Beauty Salon and Barber Shop
Address: 215 NE Hancock Street
City: Portland
Year of Construction: 1956
Architect: Benjamin Dean (designer); Jack P. Stuhl (architect)
Original Use: Retail
Status: In Use
National Register of Historic Places: Listed (100007455)
Description: Housed in a building dating from 1956 with a roman brick facade, Dean’s Beauty Salon and Barber shop is the oldest continuously operating African American salon in the state of Oregon. The business is described in the Multiple Property Listing for African American Resources in Portland, Oregon, from 1865 to 1973:
Several new African American beauty culture businesses also opened in northeast Portland after the end of World War II; beauty culture remained only of the only lucrative industries controlled primarily by Black women, and therefore these business owners were some of the most economically autonomous women within their community. While many Black beauty culturists continued to operate out of their homes, as had been common in the 1920s and earlier, dedicated salons and beauty shops became more prevalent in the postwar era: Rosemary Dean initially ran Rose’s Beauty Salon from her home address, but she and her husband Benjamin Dean opened Dean’s Beauty Salon and Barber Shop at 215 NE Hancock Street by 1959.
Further Information
• Dean’s Beauty Salon website [new window]
• Historical overview available from the National Park Service [new window]
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