Long, long ago, barbers did much more than cut people’s hair.
Barbers performed some minor operations on people, especially blood-letting, or bleeding. This was believed to be a cure for some illnesses in which the “bad blood” was supposed to leave the body.
To perform the operations, barbers had their patients hold onto a pole standing in the shop. Then the patient’s blood was “let.”
When the pole was not being used by a patient, it stood in the barber’s doorway with bandages wrapped around it. This was an advertisement that the barber was a good “bleeder.”
When people realized that it was unsanitary to use a pole that stood in a doorway, barbers painted red stripes around the poles as a continuing advertisement. The red stripes were to remind the customers of blood-soaked bandages.
Red and white striped barber poles became so identified with barbers that the custom of having a pole outside a barber shop continues today.
The world’s tallest barber pole, built in 1973 outside a barber shop in Alexander, New York, a small town near Buffalo, is 50′ 3″ high.
Related Posts
-
Where Did the Red and White Barber Pole Come From and What Does the Word Barber Mean?
The Roman word for beard is "barba", which gave us the term barber. Early barbers cut hair and trimmed beards, but they also pulled teeth and practiced medicinal bloodletting. This last procedure required…
-
Why Is It Colder At the Poles Than At the Equator and Why Is It Warmer At the Equator Than At the Poles?
As the earth orbits the sun, the sun's rays strike the areas near the Equator at a more direct angle. This delivers more energy at the equator, than they do at the poles.…
-
Why Is Red Meat Red and White Meat White and What Is the Difference Between Red Meat and White Meat?
Red meat is red because the muscle fibers which make up the bulk of the meat contain a high content of myoglobin and mitochondria, which are colored red. Myoglobin, a protein similar to…
-
Why Is the Red Sea Red In Color, How Did the Red Sea Get Its Name, and What Does It Mean In Latin?
No one is sure how the Red Sea got its name, but some people think it is because the water looks red during the summer when a reddish-brown algae floats on the surface.…
-
Why is Ground Beef Red on the Outside but Brown on the Inside and What does it mean?
The brown-meat syndrome has been a concern of consumers ever since the neighborhood butcher, who ground the meat before our very eyes, went the way of his sawdust-covered floors. In today's supermarkets, the…
-
Why Is Ground Beef Dark On the Inside But Bright Red On the Outside?
A freshly cut meat surface isn’t bright red; it’s naturally purplish because it contains the purplish-red muscle protein, myoglobin. But when myoglobin is exposed to oxygen in the air, it quickly turns into…
