1138 Broadway, Camden, NJ
Samuel Bellitz operated the Novelty Hair Goods Company, initially located at 775 Kaighn Avenue, before moving to 1408 Broadway and later to 1138 Broadway.
Born in Russia in 1890, Samuel was the son of Solomon Bellitz. He immigrated to the United States in 1902. At the age of 21, Samuel married and by June 1917, he had settled in Camden, New Jersey. At that time, when he registered for the draft, he lived at 775 Kaighn Avenue, where he also ran the Novelty Hair Goods Company. This address later became the site of the Naden Store, operated by the Naden family for several decades.
By the time of the 1930 Census, Samuel and his wife Rose had three children and were residing at 1743 George Lane in Philadelphia, where Samuel worked as a manager for a wig business. In the early 1930s, the family, along with Samuel’s brother Henry Bellitz, returned to Camden. Either Samuel restarted his business there or relocated it from Philadelphia. The 1947 Camden City Directory shows that the Bellitz family, like many other Jewish families of the time, had settled in the Parkside neighborhood, living at 1132 Empire Avenue. Eventually, Samuel and Rose moved to Oaklyn, New Jersey, where Samuel passed away in 1970 at the age of 80.
The Novelty Hair Goods Company originally produced head coverings for Orthodox Jews, later expanding into toupees, wigs, false beards, mustaches, and goatees. The business also supplied hairpieces for Halloween costumes, the Mummers parades, and Santa Claus costumes. At its peak, the company produced up to 250,000 pieces annually and employed as many as 45 workers across two shifts at their factory on Broadway.
The family-operated business was a mainstay on Broadway for over 70 years before closing in late 2003 due to competition from cheap imports and trade policies that undermined American manufacturing. The closures of Louisa’s, a Mummers’ supply store, in 2000 and the Mummers’ decision in 2002 to stop using wench wigs in their 2003 parade also negatively impacted the business.
Samuel's brother, Henry Bellitz, ran Bell Pharmacy at the corner of Mount Ephraim and Kaighn Avenues from 1932 until his death in 1941. At some point between June 2006 and September 2022, the pharmacy closed its operations.
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