Question:
Did
more people wear beards in the 1830s or today?
Answer:
The wearing of beards reached its 20th-century peak in the late 1960s
and 1970s, but there are still more beards today than in early 19th-century
New England. Since late in the 17th century, almost all American (and European)
men were clean-shaven--and stayed that way for 160 years or so. In the late
1820s, a few of the nation's most fashionable young men began sporting mustaches,
but beards weren't acceptable until the 1850s. In fact, there are reports
in the 1830s of men with beards suffering abuse and persecution from their
intolerant neighbors. Just two decades later, however, it was not only acceptable
but fashionable to be bewhiskered. (Just think of all those Civil War
photographs, with hirsute generals on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line
and Abraham Lincoln sporting one of the most famous beards in American history!)
