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The Original Moler Barber School
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A barber's station at The Original Moler Barber School: clippers, a strop, a straight razor and a shaving brush laid out on the worn counter, the chair standing empty behind.
Fridley, Minnesota  /  Serving the Twin Cities

Founded in Minneapolis.
Still cutting.

The trade has been taught under this name since A.B. Moler opened the first barber school in Chicago in 1893 and wrote its first textbook. In the Twin Cities it has been taught for over a century, and it is taught today on a working floor in Fridley.

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Next cohort begins

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Student floor  /  Call or walk in

Call the school on 763-710-9093
Fig. 01

The first barber school wrote the book

A.B. Moler opened the first school of barbering in Chicago in 1893, at a time when the trade passed hand to hand and nobody had written it down. He wrote it down. The Moler Manual of Barbering became the first textbook the trade had, and the schools that carried his name carried his method with them.

This is the school that method reached in Minnesota. It began in Minneapolis, it has taught here for over a century, and it teaches now in Fridley, ten minutes north of where it started.

The lineage: Chicago, 1893, and the textbook the trade learned from.

Clipper-over-comb on a fade, the comb held against the side of the head as a guide and the clippers riding along its edge.

Instruction on the floor: the method, taught the way it has always been taught.

Nobody here started knowing how

All five graduates

Every barber on this page had a job before this one. Most had never held a pair of clippers. That is the ordinary case, not the exception.

  • Fig. 01

    [[ALUM 01: FULL NAME]]

    [[ROLE: e.g. Barber / Master Barber / Owner]]  /  [[SHOP NAME]], [[CITY]]

    Before Moler
    [[WHAT THEY DID BEFORE MOLER: the job they left, in their own words, roughly this long]]
    Had they cut hair?
    Never
    [[PRIOR EXPERIENCE: e.g. Never touched clippers]]
  • Fig. 02

    [[ALUM 02: FULL NAME]]

    [[ROLE]]  /  [[SHOP NAME]], [[CITY]]

    Before Moler
    [[WHAT THEY DID BEFORE MOLER: e.g. six years on a warehouse floor working overnights]]
    Had they cut hair?
    A little
    [[PRIOR EXPERIENCE: e.g. Cut friends' hair in a kitchen]]
  • Fig. 03

    [[ALUM 03: FULL NAME]]

    [[ROLE]]  /  [[SHOP NAME]], [[CITY]]

    Before Moler
    [[WHAT THEY DID BEFORE MOLER: the previous job, the thing they left]]
    Had they cut hair?
    Never
    [[PRIOR EXPERIENCE: e.g. Never touched clippers]]

The people standing behind the chair

6 instructors on the floor

Every chair on the student floor is supervised. These are the barbers doing the supervising, and the ones who will be grading the work.

The student floor at The Original Moler Barber School, a row of mirrored stations with students cutting and most of the chairs occupied.

The floor, mid-session. 3 cohorts are training right now.

The chairs are full, and the public sits in them

Students train on real heads of hair, supervised, from early in the program. That is what a barber school floor is: a working shop where the price is lower because the person holding the clippers is still learning, and someone who has done this for years is standing behind them.

No appointments online. Call ahead to check the wait, or walk in.

Call the school on 763-710-9093

785 53rd Ave NE
Fridley, MN 55421

Mon
Closed
Tue
10am to 4:30pm
Wed
10am to 4:30pm
Thu
10am to 4:30pm
Fri
10am to 4:30pm
Sat
9:30am to 4pm
Sun
Closed

Cuts on the student floor are discounted and open to the public.