Object Record
Images
Additional Images [1]
Metadata
Object Name |
Chair, Barber's |
Caption |
Barber chair |
Description |
Koken barber chair. St. Louis MO. 1909 patent. Used by Joseph A. Winter and Leo J. Winter in the Winter Barber Shop, Glencoe from c.1924 to 1991. Black leather seat and back; cast iron base, porcelain & chrome arms & trim. Has hydraulic height adjustment, swivel, reversible footrest, cushioned removable head rest and reclining mechanism handle for 180 degree recline for washing hair or shaving. In 1874, Ernest Koken, then 19 and a St. Louis resident, started taking orders from local barbers for custom-decorated china shaving mugs, and the original Koken Barber Supply Co. was born. By the late 19th-century, American men wanted more than shaving mugs. Barbers, too, needed tonsorial accoutrements. Koken took up a sideline, selling used chairs to barbers. Koken then took a partner, Louis Boppert, who provided working capital and manufacturing expertise. They began to make tonsorial chairs, and in 1881 the company was awarded a patent on the first Koken chair that reclined for shaving. Chairs that revolved and reclined were patented in 1885 and 1888. The first hydraulic-lift chair, the pedaled variety, was patented in 1892. The company, with offices at 909 Market St., St. Louis, grew. By horse and wagon, salesmen roamed the city and outlying areas, returning to the Koken stables at nightfall. What they did not manufacture, they bought and brokered. Boppert died in 1886, and when Ernest Koken died of heart failure in 1907, his son, Walter, eventually took over. The company continued to refine it's top of the line chairs, adding patents for improvements and creating some of the most magnificent marvels of comfort and engineering imaginable. One of Walter's great feats was in recruiting George Chisholm, a former president of a rival manufacturing concern with ties to the East Coast barber-supply trade. Chisholm arrived in 1920 and during the next decade delivered Koken its greatest prosperity. Those were the days of the corner Barber shop where you relaxed, read a magazine while you waited, then stepped up onto that wonderful plush leather, chrome and porcelain throne, to be pampered for a brief time. You could even smoke if you wanted, there were ash trays built into the arm rests. |
Catalog Number |
2011-0191-001 |
Search Terms |
Chairs Barber chairs Winter Barber Shop, Glencoe, MN Koken Companies, St. Louis MO |
Subjects |
Barbershops Chairs |
People |
Winter, Joseph A. Winter, Leo J. |