Shaving Mugs at the Peel Museum
The shaving mugs on display at the Peel Museum & Botanical Gardens are from a collection that originally belonged to the patrons of the Elkhorn Barber Shop on the Bentonville Square. While Samuel Peel was living in Washington D.C., he saw that each barber shop patron had their own shaving mug to reduce contamination and improve hygiene. When Samuel returned to Bentonville, he brought his personal shaving mug to the Elkhorn Barber Shop and started the beloved trend in Bentonville among the local businessmen. Shaving mugs became a status symbol and they were all displayed on the wall in what they referred to as “The Bentonville Rack.”
The collection displayed at the Peel Museum is just a fraction of the mugs that were in the barbershop at the time. Our collection also includes four of the Peel family’s shaving mugs. We have one displayed from David Peel who lived in the home as a teenager, and we have three that belonged to his sons. These are actually the newest additions to the Peel Museum, courtesy of a donation from the Bentonville History Museum.
