Buzz
Commonly seen in business areas, it’s a rotating vertical cylinder signaling where people can go for a haircut or shave. This is the barber pole, often marked with red, white, and blue stripes.
While it might seem that the colors have a patriotic origin, the reality is less about national pride and more about functionality.
Barbers and their craft have existed for millennia. Razors from the Bronze Age have been discovered, and the 'barber's razor' appears in the Bible. For a long time, barbers did far more than cut hair: early doctors considered some surgeries beneath their expertise, so barbers took on tasks like wound treatment, bloodletting, and tooth extraction. Their dual role led to the title of barber-surgeons, and later, the term 'surgeons of the short robe' was coined by the Collège de Saint-Côme in Paris to distinguish them from academic surgeons.
The striped poles outside barber shops are a reminder of the barber-surgeons' bloodletting practices. Their tools for this procedure included a staff (which patients gripped to make veins more prominent), a basin (for catching blood and holding leeches), and several linen bandages. The bandages were often wrapped around the staff, and the blood bowl was placed on top, keeping everything together. These tools were displayed outside, drying the bandages while also serving as a form of advertisement. With the wind, the bandages—clean in some areas, stained in others—would twist around the pole, forming a distinctive red and white swirl.
As bloodletting became obsolete, the medical tools were removed from barbers' shops, which shifted focus to hair cutting. (In 1745, England passed legislation to officially separate barbers from surgeons.)
To keep the tradition alive and advertise their services, many barbers placed wooden poles outside their shops, painting them with stripes and adding a ball on top to mimic the staff/bandage/basin setup. Red symbolized blood, white represented bandages, and blue stood for the protruding veins. This is how the modern barber pole was created.
Today’s barber poles often feature rotating cylinders, lights, and durable materials like plastic and steel. Most of these poles can be traced back to the William Marvy Company in St. Paul, Minnesota, a leading producer of barber poles in the United States. Founder William Marvy began his career as a barber supply salesman in the 1920s. Convinced he could make a better pole than those he sold, he started his own company. By 1950, he perfected his design, using Lucite, cast aluminum, and stainless steel, making the pole lighter, stronger, and more long-lasting.
By the late 1960s, two of Marvy's competitors had gone out of business, while the other two had outsourced their pole production to his factory. Soon, the Marvy Company became the sole manufacturer of barber poles in the U.S.
William Marvy, the only non-barber inducted into the Barber Hall of Fame, passed away in 1993, but his company continues to thrive under the leadership of his son, Bob. Although annual pole sales have dropped to around 600 units (from 5,100 in 1967), the company stays busy by selling replacement parts, grooming supplies, and restoring vintage poles. If you're looking to promote your styling or bloodletting services, they still offer various types of revolving and stationary barber poles.
