“Take thou a barber’s razor and cause it to pass upon thy beard.” – The Prophet Ezekial
One would think that the early 18th century men here in New Hanover would have been bearded, as they struggled to hack clearings from the virgin forest and bake their daily bread, but not so. In fact, it’s safe to say that throughout the 18th century the Pennsylvania custom was for all men to be clean shaven. Lewis Miller’s incomparable book of watercolor drawings of York and Lancaster, Pennsylvania, during the first quarter of the 19th century also shows men to be whisker free. Every depiction we see of men up to the 1830s and 1840s shows them short haired and clean shaven. Even farmers and tradesmen such as blacksmiths look like they just emerged from the barber.
Just how country plantation owners and workers here in Swamp went about shaving during Colonial times is open to speculation. City and town dwellers would have visited a professional barber. There, the patron would hold the traditional notched basin under his own chin while being shaved. Shaving then was a rather watery, soapy business, and the basin was quite necessary. But surely the Dutchmen out here in the country did not visit city barbers, so just how then did they shave? Offhand I don’t recall seeing razors listed on estate inventories of the day, but they must have had them, as being entirely clean shaven was the rule until the 1840s.
During the decade of the 1840s facial whiskers began to creep down sideburns style until they extended their boundaries down under the chin. In time, this florid facial growth was called mutton chops and amounted to a full beard except for the cleanly shaven chin. Mustaches then began to sprout and were trimmed to improve shape and appearance.
Interestingly, the term “sideburns” was a moniker coined by Civil War soldiers in response to their affable and slightly incompetent General, Ambrose Burnside, and his famously well developed mutton chop whiskers.
By 1860, the beard was so popular in America that the clean shaven Abraham Lincoln, taking the advice of the Republican Committee, cultivated whiskers as a means of getting the popular vote. By now, all sorts and shapes of trimmed beards were improving men’s sartorial visage.
Shaving always involved soapy water slathered on the whiskers to soften them so the razor would slice them off rather than pulling them out. After the Civil War, small cakes of inexpensive, scented soaps specifically formulated to froth up into a shaving lather began to appear in the market. Since a cup was needed to hold the cake, and a badger bristle brush to whisk up the lathe, it wasn’t long before that ubiquitous shaving mug set was above every man’s wash basin and shaving soap became a necessity.
Author Robert Blake Powell notes: “During the early 1870s the idea of personally decorated shaving mugs for American men caught on like wildfire and for the next 40 years nearly all American men were shaving mug conscious and provided themselves with the ultimate in handsomely adorned and decorated mugs.”
There were pottery, pewter, silver plate, tin, aluminum and glass mugs, but by far the most common, and most popular with collectors today, were the occupational and trade design mugs often furnished with the owner’s name in burnished, gilt letters.
Barber supply companies produced tens of millions of these ceramic mugs between about 1870 and 1925. Many were used at home, but this was the heyday of the town barber shop. Each mug had its place on a shelf of the barber’s shop advertising the customer’s patronage and awaiting his, and his alone, personal use. There were hygienic reasons for a personalized shaving mug. At one time, barbers had used a common shaving mug for all customers. This common mug soon became a pot of germs and all sorts of infections and skin ailments were traced to the barber’s equipment, hence the personal mug.
One source for collectors lists more than 500 different occupational and trade design mugs. Many of the blanks were imported and decorated here with decals and hand painted scenes of trades and trade tools and, of course, the owner’s name in gilt. There are mugs depicting everything and anything from base fiddles to beer barrels, farmers plowing with two horses to fruit stands.
Making the mugs was no small industry. The art work is not paint, but fired ceramic glaze. Often the process involved several firings in gas kilns, and it’s hard to see how the barber supply companies could keep up with the demand. Many of the more unique trade and fraternal specimens are quite rare today and command large prices in the antique market.
Many thanks to Sanatoga resident Russ Kurtz for help and information for this article.
The Historian is produced by the New Hanover Historical Society. Call Robert Wood at 610-326-4165 with comments.
