Barber Shop

Barber shop focused on furnishing hair care services for men and women and has undergone dramatic changes in the latter half of the twentieth century. In 1996, there were 41,340 barber shops in the United States, a drop of 14 percent from 1991. By comparison there were more than 210,000 beauty salons, an 8 percent increase over the same period. Many of those salons cut men's hair as well. Barber shops earned an estimated $1.8 billion in revenues in 1996 and employed about 12,800 barbers and other workers. The majority of the establishments in this industry are sole or joint proprietorships that hark back to a bygone era when most consumer's needs were met by shops in the town square.

Most barber shops are located in older commercial districts of both urban areas and small towns. They serve an almost exclusively male and female clientele and are generally owned by a single person. And they must pass a state licensing examination.

The service of providing men's grooming is more than 2,000 years old. The practice of trimming men's hair and beards began in the Macedonian area around 400 B.C. and then spread to Egypt and other countries. The word "barber" is derived from the Latin word for beard, "barba." The first persons to hold themselves out as experts in the trade appeared in Rome about 296 B.C. However, in both ancient Greece and Rome, barber shops were seen as places of ill repute because men from the upper classes were groomed privately by servants. Throughout the centuries, men's beards were seen as symbols of intelligence and strength and were sometimes cared for quite meticulously. In Elizabethan times, for example, they were often dyed various hues and trimmed into unusual shapes.

For centuries barbers were highly skilled in the un-usual adjunct profession of medical surgery, which they learned from monks during the Middle Ages. Barbers performed work that surgeons refused, such as bloodletting, leech attaching, and teeth extracting. After a papal decree in 1163 forbade clergy from letting blood while engaging in surgical tasks, barber shops gained a monopoly over the service. Organizations that regulated the profession first appeared in France in 1096 and later in England in the thirteenth century. By the nineteenth century, however, the two professions of barbering and surgery had become completely separated.

The modern barber shop industry in the United States was established in the early twentieth century. In the 1920s, two organizations — the Associated Master Barbers of America and the National Association of Barber Schools — were formed to regulate the profession. A barber's speed and efficiency have been improved by technological advances, including the use of appliances such as electric hair clippers and blowdryers.

Single proprietor barber shops providing personalized service to a family of clients have become increasingly rare. Larger shares of young men are patronizing a new breed of corporate-owned unisex hairstyling establishments. These no-frills salons offer a quick haircut as well as access to the latest styling tools and hair care products. This development has been attributed to a heightened style consciousness among men and a greater social acceptance for men to patronize traditional bastions of femininity.