Small Business Focus: The Old Time Barber Shop, Pt 1

Donna Mess, owner of The Old Time Barber Shop,
and regular customer Terry Koehler.

Years ago some might have thought it odd to see a woman working behind a barber’s chair. But today, when Donna Mess steps behind the chair, it’s a sign of growth in an industry many thought would disappear from the American landscape.

Donna is the owner of The Old Time Barber Shop, 1373 Stone Road in Harrison, Ohio. She is a graduate of the Cincinnati School of Barbering & Hair Design, Inc, and has been barbering for 29 years. In that time, she has witnessed a renewed interest in the barber shop experience and felt the ups and downs of cutting hair when styles are constantly changing. The last decade, in particular, brought considerable new business, both for stand-alone shops and chain franchises.

But this hasn’t always been the case.

The barber shop -- even the name -- feels to some like a thing of the past. In order to understand the old-time success, modern decline, and new resurgence of the industry, it’s necessary to know what a barber shop really is -- and what a barber really does.

FIRST -- A HISTORY LESSON

Barbering has been around for a long time. The practice was known to the Egyptians, the Romans, and the Greeks. In the Middle Ages, barbers provided more than just a shave and a haircut. Some barbers performed surgery. It wasn’t until the 1300’s that European society thought it necessary to separate barbers into 2 classifications: those who performed surgery and those who did not.

Barbers who performed surgery later became known simply as surgeons.*  Barbers who did not perform surgery but still cut hair and trimmed beards were called tonsorial barbers. Tonsorial comes from the Latin word for shearing, clipping, or cropping and was often used to describe the hair cutting and beard trimming provided by the barber.

The distinction between the services made its way to North America. Surgery became the practice of doctors and not barbers. But barbers were still permitted to pull teeth and even perform the occasional bloodletting. Both services were eventually discontinued, the latter in 1847.

Still, the barber pole, with its red, white, and blue stripes, calls to mind the past. The red stripes stand for blood, the white for bandages, and the blue for veins.

THE OLD DAYS

Style depends upon when and where you live, and hairstyles for men have never really been consistent. Hair was relatively short for the Romans but longer for those outside the Empire. Mid-length (maybe) during the Middle Ages, longer (for some) during the Renaissance. Long hair during the colonization of America; longer still during expansion into the American West. Then short and shorter still during World Wars I and II. Finally, short and moderately short for business America during the 40’s and 50’s.

Then came the 60’s. Hair for young men grew long in the 60’s. Everyone (everyone older, that is) thought it was the beginning of the end. Of course, we’re all still here -- at least for now. But in one sense the doomsayers weren’t that far off.

Barbering, a traditionally male-dominated business, provided services for men and boys in a time when shorter hair, straight razor shaves, and neatly trimmed beards and mustaches were the order of the day. These same barbers often refused to deal with long-haired customers, and that decision placed shop owners between the rock of principle and the hard place of business.

The results were crushing. Rejected by barbers, men shifted patronage to hairstyling salons, a growing industry of its own fueled by the changing times. In the 70’s and 80’s, 65% of the barber shops in the U.S. closed for lack of business.

But barbering did not die and neither did the barber shop. Instead, a new crop of students took up the study of the scissors and comb. According to the National Barber Museum and Hall of Fame, by 1985 half of the students enrolling in barbering schools in the U.S. were women. By 1995, half were African-American.

The 21st century is reaping the results of this renewed interest.

Read Part 2... WHAT BARBERING IS REALLY ALL ABOUT

For more information about The Old Time Barber Shop, visit the company Facebook page. The Old Time Barber Shop is located at 1373 Stone Drive, Harrison OH 45030 (513-202-9777).

*Doctors of the era did not perform surgery. Surgery was considered beneath their station.