What Beards Tell Us About Power, Politics And How We See Each Other

0:07Abraham Lincoln was the first U.S. President to sport a beard. For the next 50 years, whiskers were commonplace in the White House, but then they went out of style. Now Vice President J.D. Vance is the first executive branch leader in more than a century with a furry face. And others are following suit. From the Senate to the campaign trail, more and more men in politics are letting their facial hair grow free. But what does that tell us about masculinity, power, and how we see each other? We heard from some of you. Hello. I wear a beard because I have a really weak chin. and my wife says she'll divorce me if I ever remove my beard.

0:45I did it once and she was mad. So from now on, I have to keep a beard for my wife's sake. I would say that my facial hair definitely has become part of my identity. I feel like I have a baby face. And having facial hair, whether it's a mustache or beard, that has been something that has made me feel more like an adult, even though I feel like a kid inside. During my mid-20s, my girlfriend implored me not to grow a beard. As a generous partner, I happily acceded to her wishes. I was quite devastated when that relationship ended, and to both soothe my pain and claim my independence, I grew a beard.

1:32I'm happy to report that 47 years later, that beard continues to grace my chin. Thanks for those messages. After the break, we look to history for some answers. Why did our politicians remain barefaced for so long? And why the reemergence of whiskers in the White House now? You're listening to the 1A Podcast. I'm Jen White. Stay with us. We've got a lot to get to.

2:00Joining us as our guides to all things facial hair and politics are Sarah Gold McBride. She's a lecturer in American Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. She's also author of the new book, Whiskarology, The Culture of Hair in 19th Century America. Sarah, welcome to the program. Hi, thanks for having me. Also with us, Christopher Oldstone Moore. He's an emeritus lecturer at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and author of the book of Beards and Men, The Revealing History of Facial Hair. Chris, welcome. Thank you. Glad to be here. Chris, let's go back nearly 250 years to the founding of the country.

2:34A clean-shaven face was the norm then. What did a beard signify in the 1700s? Beards were not to be seen among respectable men. And you might find them, of course, among farmers and workers and seamen, especially those traveling in the oceans. But otherwise, in the halls of law offices and courts and power and Congress, no beards. What did it signal to people if you were either clean shaven or you sported a beard? What was the story that told? Yeah, well, actually, clean shaving has been the predominant mode for most of Western history, going all the way back to Greek times. And the main idea that shaving seems to imply for us in our culture is discipline and orderliness and playing by the rules, being part of a larger collective.

3:43And a beard can tend to mean your departure from that. Sarah, when did we start to see that shift? It really wasn't until the 1850s. that we start to see the meaning of the beard change in the U.S. context. The timelines are slightly different in other parts of Western Europe. But in the U.S., it really wasn't until the 1850s that we see American men, both ordinary and as high as the highest halls of political power, begin growing their facial hair and not receive that kind of condemnation that Chris was talking about. It's only two decades earlier in the 1830s that we have stories of men who had grown beards as farmers, for example, that when they move into a city are attacked for their beards, both literally attacked in some cases with violence, attempts to be forcibly shaved.

4:36But by the 1850s, we see this major shift where we have our first candidate for president with a beard. That's John C. Fremont in 1856. And then by 1860, Abraham Lincoln elected with a beard on his face. Well, it's interesting. If you look at portraits of our presidents, you can see the trend in facial hair expressed there. So as you said, Sarah, Abraham Lincoln was the first president to sport a beard, followed by several other presidents. There was Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, and Benjamin Harrison. Chris, what do you think presidential facial hair tells us about the symbolic history of the beard and its connection to power?

5:19Well, that shift that you just described, that era, means that we're defining masculine power a little differently in that era. I assign it at that period partly to the rise of the women's movement. Men were, you know, having to assert manliness as a special privilege. Right. And they were more self-conscious about that because people were starting to question what kind of privileges men have just because they're men. And so that was part of the reason that I think men in that era favored facial hair. But it seems to me that there are so many different ways to express or assert masculinity. Sarah, why do you think men of that era landed on facial hair?

6:15What I think is really striking about this era, and I completely agree with Chris, that the women's movement, the beginning of early feminism, and the effort by American women, black and white women alike, to fight for more political rights. It also is an era in which race is so fraught in the United States. And what's really striking about the sources I looked at in the mid-19th century, especially in the 1850s, which is this really explosive moment, the eve of the Civil War, is that sources are writing about, my primary sources are writing about facial hair as not just a privilege of men as compared to women and of adult men as compared to boys, to pick up on something that one of the callers mentioned, but also quite a few writers are suggesting and really proclaiming that whiteness is tied to beardedness as well, that to wear a beard is a privilege of white men alone.

7:08They would argue that men of the African diaspora, East Asian men, or men who are indigenous to North America simply were biologically incapable of growing a beard. Now, of course, this is a falsehood. Frederick Douglass, for example, who I read about in the book, wore a very beautiful beard for much of his professional life and was photographed over 160 times specifically to make his face, which included his beard, a big part of visual culture in the mid-century United States. But for writers who were very convinced of both the white privilege and the masculine privilege that they wanted to retain at a moment where both the privileges, the political privileges of men were being challenged and the political privileges of white people were being challenged in the lead up and aftermath of the Civil War.

7:56The beard offers this perfect intersection of white male power. We got this question from one of you. Why should we care about whether a person wears a beard or not? And I'd love to hear both of your responses. And maybe it's, I will say for me, we often get these questions also when we talk about things like fashion and the way that intersects with our views around American culture, femininity, masculinity, consumerism. But Christopher, to your mind, why does this even matter? Well, one of your callers referenced identity. And we have a personal identity. We also have collective identity and in culture, right?

8:37And so it's a communication. It's a form of communication. We communicate our identity. We craft our identity. We do that individually, but we also do that collectively. Sarah, your thoughts? Yeah, I think as your callers alluded to, so many personal and individual factors grow into a person's decision whether or not to grow facial hair, what kind of facial hair they want to sport, whether to shave or not. And it may be something very idiosyncratic and personal, like how they feel their chin looks or something else like that. But as Chris points out and reminds us, if we treat facial hair or hair or fashion or otherwise as merely an individual decision that doesn't matter, it suggests that these things are frivolous, that there's nothing communicated collectively by the choices we make about our bodies.

9:29And what history shows us is that the body has been such an important site for people both to communicate their own identities, but also really importantly, to read the identities of other people when they first encounter a new person. Chris and I both write about the 19th century, which is an era in which Americans have to interact with strangers for basically the first time in American history. That constantly throughout the day in cities and on trains and even when buying and selling goods in the market economy, you have to interact with strangers in a way that we now feel is so commonplace in our daily lives, but that was completely alien in a 19th century context.

10:09context and figuring out how to trust people or who is who and who's representing themselves truthfully or not, the body became this really important site of meaning-making when you meet someone new. And to not care about these things suggests that all of this is frivolous and it really does matter. Well, and briefly, Sarah, your book focuses not just on beards but hair in all its various forms. And it turns out hair was seen very differently in the 19th century. Tell us more. Yes, absolutely. So I read about beards in the context of hair on the head. Body hair was not seen broadly in public spaces in the 19th century.

10:50So I focus on the neck and above. But you're right. What I found in my research is that in the 19th century, Americans understood their hair to be a part of the body, to be truly like a body part, like an arm or a leg. And that because it was a part of the body. It was this external representation. It sort of grew out of the body, and it represented biologically, 19th century people believed, who a person truly was inside. And that was why when a person met someone new that they didn't know, met a stranger, the hair was thought to be capable of communicating true and reliable information, even scientifically valid information, about who that person really was.

11:32And that is really important context, I argue, for how the beard gained meaning as well. Because as Chris pointed out, their beardlessness, barefacedness was so predominant for so much of Western history. And yet, there are sources throughout these barefaced eras that praise beards for all these different reasons. And yet, despite the praise, men were still shaving their own faces. So it really matters in the mid-century that that changes so dramatically. Chris, when and why did facial hair begin to go out of style during the U.S.'s first big beard boom? Right at the turn of the 20th century. In fact, I kind of even point the year 1903 is almost like the turning point.

12:12I can almost get it down to a year. And that had a couple of reasons. One of them was this new focus on hygiene that we had discovered at that point that the disease was caused by these things called germs. And we imagined, not completely wrongly, that germs lived in hair. And so getting rid of hair, all hair, you know, you'll notice that the early 20th century was a very short-haired era. And that had a lot to do with cleanliness, but it also was associated with professionalism. Cleanliness and professionalism were strongly linked, order and discipline, as I said before. So that makes me wonder, Sarah, about how men who kept beards kept up with them, right?

13:02Because this is before Colette had the quick razor. You could just sort of, you know, do it yourself. This was a skill. Shaving was a skill. So who was in charge of keeping men's beards groomed if they did keep a beard? I think men's grooming, if they were shaving, as you suggested, because the 19th century predates the safety razor where one could shave themselves easily and safely at home, men who shave their faces would go to a barber almost uniformly, sometimes multiple times a week to maintain their shaving. For men who maintained their beards, the 19th century is also the era of the emergence of a market economy in a big way, where ordinary people could purchase consumer goods, including things like combs or waxes or other sorts of tonics and treatments for their hair and facial hair.

13:54They could be purchased quite easily from a local store, from a department store, from a catalog. So the responsibility for grooming one's facial hair, for most men, probably occurred at home. What's interesting is that there was a period of time when black men found a means to build wealth by becoming barbers, and many of their patrons were white. How and when did that dynamic change? Yes, and this is one of Chris and Mai's other colleagues, Sean Trainor. He writes really beautifully about this exact question, because barbering was one of the few professions that was an important vehicle for black men to achieve a form of wealth and professional status in the first half of the 19th century.

14:35And because most barbers were black men, white men would multiple times a week often be going to a barbershop owned and operated by a black barber who would use a straight razor to shave that white man's face. And what Sean argues is that in the 1850s, as sectional tensions and local tensions over slavery and over relationships between white and black Americans became increasingly tense, that many white men decided maybe it's a little dicey for me to be going to a black man with a blade against my neck multiple times per week. It felt a little more dangerous. And even the space of the black-owned barbershop felt a little bit more dangerous.

15:16And so many white men, he found in his research, tried to shave themselves at home thinking, well, maybe instead of going to the barber, I'll just take care of this myself. But without, with a straight razor and mirrors that may not have been so great quality and access to running water that may or may not have been so great, it turns out that shaving oneself at home in the 1850s wasn't great. And so beards became popular for some of these men. Well, we're discussing the boom and bust cycle of beards in the U.S. and what drives the trends behind men's facial hair. Still to come, why we're currently seeing a beard renaissance in our nation's capital and what it says about perceptions of masculinity and power.

15:55Stay with us. More in a moment.

16:03Let's get back to our conversation about trends in men's facial hair in the U.S., what drives them, and what, if anything, they tell us about the time we're living in. Now let's add another voice to the conversation. Igor Bobik is a senior political reporter at HuffPost. Igor, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me. We also got this comment from Jefferson, who says, I've been discriminated against because of my beard, as though it stereotypes me as a left-wing, tree-hugging, bleeding-heart liberal. Of course, it's true, but it's still irking to sense an automatic hatred because of my appearance.

16:32Igor, in May, you wrote a piece for HuffPost titled, 2028 Might Be the Year of the Beard for Presidential Hopefuls. What was the inspiration? Well, I've got to say I was a little biased. I haven't a beard myself. So I'm glad to see the times are finally catching up to what I think the trends should be like as a full, healthy beard, including some of our presidential candidates. So your piece was a little cheeky, right? But on the other hand, it did dig into serious issues about Republicans and Democrats and how they're working to appeal to male voters. So what are the real politics that could explain the beard trend we're seeing?

17:11Yeah, so, you know, recent research has shown that beards today are often associated with trends, with characteristics like masculinity and dominance. And it's something that Democratic voters in particular are looking for right now, you know, in this age of the second Trump administration. And the, you know, polls showing how terribly Democratic Party is viewed across the country. A recent Wall Street Journal poll found that just 33 % of the public like what the Democrats are doing right now. Now, of course, they're in the minority, so they can't do much. And yet still people are feeling very frustrated by their ineffectual nature right now.

17:53So what are the Democrats, lawmakers, presidential candidates doing? They're trying to appeal to some of these voters with stylistic cues like beards, which, you know, might make them seem a little bit more rugged and like they're fighters. They can fight. They can go toe-to-toe with somebody like Trump. And, you know, time and time again, that's what Democratic voters right now are looking for. What information do we have about how voters actually perceive politicians with facial hair? So, you know, recent studies have shown that people actually do tend to say they would, like, be more willing to vote for somebody with a beard.

18:29Now, that also comes with kind of a downside. There are negative associations with beards, like being seen as more aggressive or having less support for feminist issues, which is a potential downside for some of these Democratic presidential candidates who have started growing beards recently. Is there any difference between how men and women voters perceive candidates with facial hair? Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think that's what you're seeing. Male Democratic candidates right now going on right-leaning podcasts with lots of listeners who are male, young men in particular, to try to appeal to their voting bloc.

19:11We saw in the 2024 election young men dramatically swing towards Trump. And I think that's why Democrats right now are realizing that they need an image makeover to try to get back some of these votes. We got this comment from Janie who says, after the Duck Dynasty TV show, so many men grew scraggly, unkept beards. Chris, when we look historically, how often has pop culture played maybe an outsized influence on how politicians view facial hair if you're in the public sphere? Popular culture has a powerful influence, but there's been a lot of pushback in facial hair as well, as we've just been discussing.

19:57The sports figures, movie stars, and so forth. And over time, well, I think of Thomas Dewey, who was the last candidate before our times to try to run with a mustache. He was called the Clark Gable of candidates. And that was the idea was that he was going to appeal to that kind of movie star idea. But that didn't work for him. And that was because mustaches were also associated with untrustworthiness and independence that voters didn't want. And I think what voters do want now is, as we were, as Igor was just saying, they do want that more, that rugged independence now. I mean, Sarah, your research into 19th century bearded connected facial hair to a very specific kind of masculinity.

20:46First explain what that masculinity looked like. Yes. So the masculinity of the revolutionary era, as we talked about earlier, that barefacedness was associated with desirable masculine characteristics, especially for white men, such as self-mastery over one's own body. And this word mastery is very deliberate here. to be very in control of the body, to be very sort of in control of one's own urges. This is the type of masculinity that was most popular at the turn of the 19th century, excuse me, the revolutionary era. But as we move more into the 19th century, norms around masculinity also shift.

21:28And in masculinity, especially by the end of the 19th century, masculinity began to prioritize and really privilege forms of this sort of rugged, outdoorsy, frontier, sort of conquering the frontier, expansionist imperial masculinity that was, we can tie it into 19th and early 20th century popularity of boxing, of national parks, of Boy Scouts even, forms of outdoor rugged masculinity. just like Igor is suggesting that today may be tied with forms of beard wearing on contemporary politicians. So with that context, Sarah, how do you interpret the increased presence of facial here today and what it says about perhaps a different type of masculinity?

22:15Yeah, it's hard for me as a historian to interpret the current moment. I always joke that I'm allergic to the present as a historian of the 19th century. But we are in a moment where things are happening with masculinity in new kinds of ways. I think the late 19th century, turn of the 20th century was, I think, our last major shift in norms of masculinity. There, of course, have been challenges or alternatives to American masculinity presented in the 1960s, for example, with hippie men growing their hair long, which had been so anathema for about 150 years at that point. But I think the moment we're in right now is an interesting moment of masculinity.

22:54There's a lot of conversation about crises of masculinity, from mental health crises of masculinity to even friendship crises among American men. So I do, well, I would, as a historian, I feel unqualified to make strong conclusions about the present. I do think it's significant that in a moment where our masculine norms and the values and visions of what it means to be an American man are under question, that facial hair would also come into the conversation. It really shows us just how powerful hair has been in communicating American identity. Well, we got this email from Andrew about his own beard and his political identity.

23:33I have a neatly kept beard but have been considering shaving it ever since J.D. Vance was nominated for the vice presidency last summer. I believe we might see a wave of clean-shaven progressives in the near future. Igor, when you look at the politics of the moment and the fact that politicians on both sides of the aisle are leaning into this facial hair trend, And what does it say to you about, I suppose it feels to me as if it's not so much about policy. It's about signaling something that isn't necessarily about policy. It's about something else. Absolutely. You know, you try to get a leg up any way you can as a political candidate, you know, a cut above the rest as, excuse the pun.

24:22But, you know, I think that Democrats right now are in crisis and they're going to try anything that can get them to where they want to go, which is beating the Republican Party in next year's midterm elections and also the presidency. And I think Republicans have shown that their affinity for beards has moved the needle. I think, you know, obviously J.D. Vance was the first to break that hairy ceiling in 2024, becoming the first major party candidate, I believe, in over 70 years with a beard. And I think that that's why you're seeing people like Chris Murphy, Democrat from Connecticut. Ruben Gallego, of course, Democrat from Arizona, has had a beard for some time now.

25:06They're both hitting the trail, you know, touting their beards. and Pete Buttigieg, of course, freshening up his image, who looked very boyish, now is looking a little bit more rugged. And of course you have the New York City, soon to be mayor, potentially, Mamdani, sporting a nice little beard. Younger Democrats like Maxwell Frost of Florida also joining in the trend. But I think that even the Democrats without beards, people like Gavin Newsom of California, Obviously, he's got that nice shiny hair to show off on the top of his head. But even he's trying to slim down, become a little bit more casual, wearing jeans, got rid of the suit.

25:54He's doing right-leaning podcasts. He's bringing people on like Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon, conservatives to talk to. So I think it is a trend that Democrats are trying to capitalize on. But, you know, it remains to be seen whether superficial changes like facial hair can persuade the broader electorate that Democrats have more to offer than Republicans. You know, I work in the Capitol. I've asked Republicans about this trend, and they kind of laugh it off. They tell me, you know, hair doesn't really matter. What matters is policy. And I think that's going to be the real test next year. We also got this question from John who says, there was the belief that men who grow facial hair did so to conceal aspects of their character and by extension, their motives and morality.

26:39Is this still a prevailing belief? Chris, I'll come to you first. I mean, what does history tell us about not just what beards maybe said about the person, but what it said about what they might be hiding? Yeah, that's a common idea that comes way back, at least into the 19th century. And maybe Sarah mentioned that it was about self-control. And people commented back then that beards kind of hide your emotions and that makes you seem more in control so that you can panic on the inside but look tough on the outside. And I think there's a little bit of that, too. And I think that's kind of part of the psychology of a beard.

27:18So, Sarah, when you look at the now, and again, you're a historian, so I'm not asking you to make conclusions, but do you think that is still a prevailing belief that beards in some way obscure emotions or even motives? I, you know, I'm really not sure because I think that what my research has shown me is that there's, despite the draw and so much writing has suggested that hair has these kinds of universal, ahistorical meanings, that long hair always means one thing and short hair always means something else. That what I've found is that hair's meaning, whether it's on the head or the face, is really deeply contextual.

27:56It is deeply rooted in the time and the place. And so while in some eras of the American past to wear a beard suggested a person was sketchy or antisocial or a radical of some kind, in other eras it suggested the exact opposite, that they were firm and trustworthy. We might think, for example, of all the Civil War generals that wore beards and many of whom were elected to presidential office in the aftermath of the war. So I wouldn't necessarily carry meanings of veiling the emotions or untrustworthiness into the present because so much of this hair meaning is really a reflection of the specific time in which the hair is being worn.