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Your ancestors’ style choices can not only help you identify when a photo was taken, but they can also give you clues about their lives and experiences.
It’s common practice to look for photo clues in clothes and accessories, but what you may not know is your ancestor’s facial hair can contain a wealth of information as well! Men styled their beards and mustaches in different ways and for different reasons throughout history.
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Here is a quick overview of the history of facial hairstyles in the United States. From frontier beards to waxed mustaches, here’s what you need to know to identify key clues in your ancestors’ facial hair.
Due to political conflicts at the time, facial hair was somewhat associated with the French and therefore avoided by many. However, you will also see some examples of men sporting fringe beards under the chin.
The 1850s were a tumultuous time for men’s hair, particularly in England. After years of being discouraged from growing facial hair, a ‘mustache movement’ began to take place among the British Army in 1831, specifically those in India. These styles would still raise eyebrows until the Crimean War when the tables turned and men were encouraged to grow bushy beards to protect them from the bitter cold. Facial hair took on new meanings of bravery and manliness and their popularity grew in both Europe and the United States.
Golden Age Of Facial Hair: Cool Photos That Defined Beard Styles Of Victorian Men » Design You Trust
Beards continued to grow in popularity, in part due to the influence of unshaven frontiersmen. By the time the Civil War began, men across the country were sporting a wide array of facial hair styles.
Abraham Lincoln grew his distinctive beard on the advice of a young girl named Grace Bedell. Following US Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes and James A. Garfield followed his lead.
Even Uncle Sam himself gained a beard. Cartoonist Thomas Nast began drawing the character with a long beard, which would remain one of his key features.
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After the war, men continued to wear many different styles of facial hair. When they went to the barber they could choose styles based on charts like the one below.
In the 1880s, James Wilkins chose a mustache known as the Pennant. In the 20th century, artist Salvador Dalí was famous for an exaggerated version of this style (this mustache was made famous again recently for retaining its extreme shape even after Dali’s death).
(Left) This man in the 1880s wears the beard but not the mustache for the Imperial style. I’ve also seen this beard referred to as the Spade.
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In this era beards became less common and more men choose to go clean-shaven or opt for highly styled and groomed mustaches. The handlebar style was popular, shaped with brushes and wax.
Remember, men would sometimes wear a style for a many years. In this photo, Orville Wright wears the Pennant style in 1905, 20 years after the publication of the beard trimming chart above.
Facial hair was an investment of time and resources. Men would visit barbers often to maintain appearances. The increase in men foregoing facial hair inspired young businessman King C. Gillette to patent his disposable razor in 1904.
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By this time the “Victorian beard craze” was finally beginning to fade. During WWI, the US military required men to be clean shaven for sanitary reasons and also so that there wouldn’t be any interference with the seal of a gas mask.
However there was one distinct facial hair style that came out of this era, popularized by comedians like Charlie Chaplin and Oliver Hardy. This style is commonly called “toothbrush mustache.”
Film stars began to have an effect on popular facial hair styles. For example, Errol Flynn’s pencil thin mustache and Clark Gable’s distinctive look in Gone with the Wind.
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Keep your eye out for some of these famous styles on your ancestor’s faces. If you have a family photo you’d like to learn more about, you can submit it via maureentaylor.com.
This mystery photo features a lovely assortment of Gilded Age hat styles. Let’s take a closer look at the details in this photo, (including the hats!) to see what more we can learn.
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Angle down icon An icon in the shape of an angle pointing down. Beards have changed drastically over the past 200 years. Wikimedia Commons and Getty
Facial hair has a long and complicated history that dates back long before celebrities — like Chris Hemsworth, Prince Harry, and Donald Glover — brought their perfectly groomed beards to the mainstream.
In fact, during the Middle Ages and the 16th century, men were known to grow full beards. At one point, Charles Darwin even believed that beards were a symbol of power used to attract women, and he tried to prove that beardedmen are better at procreating. At other times in history, beards were considered uncleanly and inappropriate.
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Before the late 1860s, facial hair was viewed as radical. But as the US entered into the Civil War, facial hair quickly became a symbol of masculinity and power. One of the popular styles was called sideburns, which is a bushy beard with a clean-shaven chin. The look was inspired by Civil War General Ambrose Burnside. In fact, his last name, Burnside, was first used to describe the style, but this later evolved into sideburns.
When Abraham Lincoln became president in 1861, he ushered in a new beard style that caught on with many men: the chin curtain. For those who didn't want to sport the sideburn look, they chose to grow their beard along the jawline and clean-shavethe mustache.
Like Abraham Lincoln, presidents Rutherford Hayes and James Garfield sparked another facial hairstyle, and onethat we are more used to today: the full beard. Towards the end of the 19th century, men embraced a fuller — and sometimes unkempt — look when it came to their facial hair.
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In Europe, men started sculpting their beards into mustaches during World War I because it was difficult to put on gas masks with a full beard. Once the war ended, a mustache revolution took over. President William Howard Taft then helped make the handlebar mustache popular in the US by curling the ends up towards the eyes.
In the '20s, the mustache became the most popular style for men to sport. Some tribute the popularity to Agatha Christie's famous mustached protagonist Hercule Poirot from The Mysterious Affair at Styles . The BBC also cites the boom of Hollywood's leading men — likeClark Gable, Errol Flynn, and Ronald Colman — whoall donned the mustache look.
The toothbrush mustache is most famous for the last person to wear it — Adolf Hitler. Today the look is considered offensive, but back in the 1930s, the trimmed down mustache was a very popular look among men, especially in Europe. Even Walt Disney wore the style at the time. In a New York Times article from 1908, they said a man'stoothbrush mustache was a characteristic of his class. But the style disappeared after World War II for obvious reasons.
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When Gone With the Wind premiered in 1939, it sparked a new facial hairstyle thanks to the film's leading man, Clark Gables. His thin 'stache inspired another spin on the look by thinning the mustache and bringing it closer to the upper lip. The look is called the pencil mustache. At the time, it was meant to look dignified, prompting many famous men to choose the thinner look, like writer George Orwell and musician Sammy Davis Jr.
During the '50s in the US, most men were clean-shaven, but facial hair continued to flourish in creative communities.As the US entered a cultural Renaissance of sorts in the '50s, artists crafted their facial hair into what is now known as a goatee, which allows for hair to grow solely around the mouth. The style started with jazz musicians but quickly spread to other artists.
While Hulk Hogan is most associatedwith the famous horseshoe mustache, there are a number of other people who helped bring this facial hairstyle intothe mainstream. Metallica frontman James Hetfield and Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose both sported the pornstache — a horseshoe-shaped mustache that frames the mouth with two parallellines of hair. You can also find this style in many biker groups that started to pop up in the '70s.
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In the 1980s, mustaches became fuller, thicker, and dipped just below the upper lip. The look became known as the Chevron and was made popular by actor Tom Selleck.
At the turn of the century, the unkempt look started to become
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