Thread: History of straight razor shaving - who did it?

I'm having a hard time actually finding answers to this online. In particular I am interested in say 1850-1910.

WHat I want to know is how many men actually shaved themselves daily with a straight? Did it vary by "social class"?

Evidence against most men doing it:


-THe marketing for early safety razors sometimes implies that men used to regularly go to barber shops to get shaved, and marketed the safety as a convenience - implying that some men, at least, did not know how to use a straight and got someone else to do it for them.

-I know that a lot of officers in the American Civil War would probably have had servants/ batman who shaved them - presumably higher class men were used to having others shaving them?

-I have never seen a picture of a soldier from the American Civil War or World War I using a straight (rather than a safety) on themself - a friend is always doing it in these photos.

-Other documents (such as a guide to shaving I found online but I can't find it now - it's been linked to before) also seem to suggest that there was a bit of literature around teaching men to shave so they could save money at the barber.

Conclusions:

So by and large, were men shaved by someone else when using a straight, historically? Or is the lack of accounts of men shaving with straights because it was taken for granted and not worthy of mention and it was a skill every man had? Are the photos of friends shaving each other in wartime a novelty rather than the norm?

Any info appreciated.

PS I don't have any photos of American Civil War soldiers shaving - if anyone does, I'd be grateful.

We become so far removed from our past we really have no idea what life was like back then.

While straights were the only way to shave most men used them. Most people couldn't afford a professional shave except for special occasions. Only the very wealthy had servants who could shave them and really most wealthy folks shaved themselves.

I don't know how you would verify this except by books about life during those times where they would just mention shaving in passing. This was just a very common thing like how did women wash clothes before automatic washers existed. Gee you mean they really boiled water and beat clothes and used fireplace ash to clean and washboards?

I have no idea how common or uncommon it was for men to shave their own faces during the period you mention, but as far as you having not seen pictures I guess I could provide a quick google result of a 19th century engraving of a man shaving around his neck beard:

Thanks for the feedback.

I've always been curious about straight razors before the late 1700s. The earliest examples shown in books like Robert Doyle's "Collecting Straight Razors" go that far back but no further. So I googled, found Mental_Floss blog, and came up with this quote;

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, circular solid gold or copper razors can be found as far back as the 4th millennium BC in some Egyptian tombs. Still other cultures sharpened volcanic obsidian glass and used those.
Another story posits that the Roman king Lucius Tarquinius Priscus introduced the razor to his people in the 6th century BC, but shaving didn’t really catch on with Romans for another hundred years or so.
In the 4th century BC, Alexander the Great encouraged his men to shave so enemies couldn’t grab their beards during melees. Alexander’s subjects were often shaved using a novacila, a block of iron with one edge sharpened, which sounds like a great way to shred your face.
Julius Caesar supposedly preferred to have his beard plucked out with tweezers, although other Roman men used razors or rubbed the beards from their faces using pumice stones."

Originally Posted by otsheylnik

I'm having a hard time actually finding answers to this online. In particular I am interested in say 1850-1910.

WHat I want to know is how many men actually shaved themselves daily with a straight? Did it vary by "social class"?

Evidence against most men doing it:


-THe marketing for early safety razors sometimes implies that men used to regularly go to barber shops to get shaved, and marketed the safety as a convenience - implying that some men, at least, did not know how to use a straight and got someone else to do it for them.

-I know that a lot of officers in the American Civil War would probably have had servants/ batman who shaved them - presumably higher class men were used to having others shaving them?

-I have never seen a picture of a soldier from the American Civil War or World War I using a straight (rather than a safety) on themself - a friend is always doing it in these photos.

-Other documents (such as a guide to shaving I found online but I can't find it now - it's been linked to before) also seem to suggest that there was a bit of literature around teaching men to shave so they could save money at the barber.

Conclusions:

So by and large, were men shaved by someone else when using a straight, historically? Or is the lack of accounts of men shaving with straights because it was taken for granted and not worthy of mention and it was a skill every man had? Are the photos of friends shaving each other in wartime a novelty rather than the norm?

Any info appreciated.

PS I don't have any photos of American Civil War soldiers shaving - if anyone does, I'd be grateful.

This is quite an overload for my little doggie brain. I'm guessing you're writing a Master's thesis? Anyway, I don't believe (based on my education as a US Army officer) that Civil War era officers had servants, unless they were colonels or above. British officers, on the other hand, had batmen, even from the most junior officer rank.

My understanding is that when the US became involved in WWI in 1917, troops were issued both the straight razor and safety razor. It turned out that the safety razor was far more popular, and after the war, became the favored way of shaving.

My $.02 for what it's worth

I daresay war photo's of one soldier shaving another is due to the distinct danger of a reflective surface attracting enemy gun fire if you were to shave yourself...You could avoid it of course, but it would be just as easy to have a mate do the shaving for you.
My Great grandfather was around for part of that time frame you specify and he shaved everyday with a cut-throat razor right into the 1980's. He died in 1986 at the age of 97.


Mick

I could see myself shaving without a mirror using a safety, but not with a straight....