A barber shop with a traditional barber pole. Photo by Kim Traynor, CC-BY-SA-2.0
Local business

History of the Barber Shop, Part 1

SHELLEY/BLACKFOOT, Idaho – Welcome to the Twenty-first century. Because we are nearly a quarter of the way through the century, it is timely to identify who we are and who we want to emulate, not only with our dress, but also with our looks and our grooming. Many years ago, nearly 6,000 to be exact, the Egyptians took the lead in outward appearance and fashion with their glamorous dress and looks. Slaves were often summoned to the chambers of the nobles to do the hairdressing and grooming of the royalty and using an assortment of sharpened seashells and polished metals cut and mold the hair into whatever the nobles wanted. Natural substances such as beeswax and ornaments were used to style the noble to the most stunning and sometimes shocking array of hair styles. Displeasing a noble often resulted in banishment to the hard-labor slavery or, even worse, death. Over time, the job of grooming for appearances eventually included dental, medical, and surgical procedures. By the Middle Ages, those trusted to perform these jobs placed a red and white pole outside of their shops. Overtime, as people in this trade became more trusted, the more adventurous increased the number of [read more…]