Having was from long ago considered a practiced cult in different traditions of the world, but was controversial to some: In India, barbers wanted to give their clients different forms of side haircuts that each one preferred. However, Orthodox Jews tended to avoid clipping sides of their head. 

In Greece, it was obligatory for male students to always have their heads shaved until the 20th century. The same applied to any newly recruit in the military, new officers had to be shaved on the first day of setting their feet in camp.

Shaving was also a punishment to all those detained by the police, but it was abolished in late 1982.

These, among other cultures used different traditional methods of shaving until Leo J. Wahl invented the first electric hair clipper as he was shaving his uncle Dr Frank Wahl in 1919.

His uncle opened a manufacturing plant to produce massagers. Leo was a seller of massagers and profited from that to keep improving on some of the barber’s tools. 

Leo took over his uncle’s factory as Frank left to serve in the Spanish-American war in 1989. But he continued to work on his inventions and within a year, Wahl manufacturing had sold thousands of clippers all over the United States.

He then renamed his company Wahl Clipper Corporation and when he died in 1957, he had made over 100 patent applications to his name.

His descendants still operate the company, and as of today, Wahl Clipper is an international industry leader in the manufacturing of products for the professional beauty and barber salon trade, consumer personal care and animal grooming.