July 2026

The red, white and blue colored stripes on the barber shop pole are actually a vestige from an era when barbershops were used for bloodletting.  Bloodletting was a medical procedure from the  Middle Ages which involved cutting one’s veins open and letting blood drain away in the hopes of curing a wide variety of maladies. The procedure was originally performed by monks, but after the church stopped them, people had to turn to barbers. Barber shops were essentially outpatient clinics – they used to cut hair, do some bloodletting, set broken bones, and pull bad teeth. The red color on the barber pole represents the blood, while the white color represents, bandages. The pole itself represents a special stick that people would hold onto during the bloodletting procedure.

Later, in America, after much of the bloodletting tradition was forgotten, the blue stripe was added to the barber shop pole to match the American Flag.

Borrowed by Daheap from Why Do We Say That?;Scott Matthews