Why Does a Barber’s Pole Have Stripes?
In early years the barber not only cut hair and shaved people, but he was also a surgeon. He was a surgeon to the extent that he bled people. In early times our knowledge of surgery was practically limited to blood letting. A great many of the ailments were attributed to too much blood in the body, and when anything got wrong with a man or woman, the first thing they thought of was to reduce the amount of blood in the body by taking some of it out.
The town barber was the man who did this for people and his pole represented the sign of his business.
The round ball at the top which was generally gilded represents the barbering end of the business. It stood for the brass basin which the barber used to prepare lather for shaving customers.
The pole itself represents the staff which people who were having blood taken out of their bodies held during the operation. The two spiral ribbons, one red and one white, which are painted spirally on the pole, represented the bandages. The white one stood for the bandage which was put on before the blood was taken out and the red one the bandage which was used for binding up the wound when the operation was completed.