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MADE IN AMERICA
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Minnesota company keeps trade symbols twirling | I;l
By Marti Attoun, contributing editor » PHOTOS BY KEN KLOTZBACH J : i |
IN 1950, Bob Marvy helped his father flip
the switch on the first electric barber pole
manufactured by the William Marvy Co. in
§t. Paul, Minn., and proudly watched the red,
white and blue stripes spiral upward.
More than 83,000 barber poles later, Marvy
and his three sons keep the motor-driven trade
symbols twirling as the last manufacturer of
barber poles in North America.
“Dad’s greatest wish was to keep the barber
pole symbol alive,” says Marvy, 64, about his
late father, William, who built, peddled and
popularized the rustproof aluminum, stainless
steel and glass cylinder barber poles posted at
barbershops across the nation.
William began working in the barber supply
business at age 12, bottling lilac water and other
aftershaves and hair tonics, and eventually
hawking supplies to barbershops across
Minnesota. When he opened his own company in
1936, he sold 125-pound, cast-iron barber poles.
“The dealer was expected to install them
and Dad would carry them up a ladder and
bolt them to the wall,” Marvy says. “He saw an
opportunity to design a lightweight pole.”
Today, an updated version of William'’s
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» AMERICANPROFILE COM
PAGE 10
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Bob Marvy and his sons—Brad, Scott '
and Dan—operate William Marvy Co., a
barber supply business in St. Paul, Minn.
It wouldn’t be a true barber
shop if it didn’t have a pole.
Robin Schat! oen
1 Barber Supply in Appleton. Wi
original electric model, featuring a stainless steel
dome and bottom bowl, an inner striped paper
cylinder and outer glass cylinder, and a reflective
panel in back, remains the best-seller of the more
than two-dozen models made by the company.
From the start, William numbered each pole
and recorded its sale in a ledger, making it easier to
find replacement parts when poles are damaged or
need refurbishing. Pole No. 50,000, made during
the company’s busiest year in 1967, hangs on the
factory wall while No. 75,000, built in 1997, turns
at the Smithsonian National Museum of American
History in Washington, D.C.
Though the number of barbershops declined
with the introduction of electric razors in the
1930 s and longer men’s hairstyles in the 19605,
william Marvy Co. continues production. The
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Young Bob with his parents, Rose and William, in 1956
business employs 14 workers, including a third
generation of Marvys—Scott, 38: Dan, 36; and
Brad, 32—who manufacture and sell about 500
barber poles each year.
In the Marvy factory, Scott Gohr, 55, begins
assembling the poles by shaping flat sheets of
thick paper, printed with wide, colored stripes,
into cylinders on an antique mandrel. He fastens
metal ends to the cylinders with a crimper.
At a nearby workbench, Chue Vang, 44, fits
the paper cylinders into glass cylinders that
have been glued and caulked into aluminum
frameworks. Electric motors, which turn the
paper cylinders, are wired into the bottom of the
(Continued on page 12)