Hayes’ shaggy beard to Teddy Roosevelt’s well-trimmed ‘stache, it was a time when America stood for life, liberty and the pursuit of hairiness. Nine of the next 10 sitting presidents would go unshaven. Lincoln further popularized beards throughout the nation everyone wanted to look like the man who kept the union together, and thus began the true era of presidential facial hair. The solution? Fill in those features with some winning whiskers. But as he entered the race for the White House, some people suggested his gaunt features might scare off potential voters. Before that, he had always prided himself on being clean-shaven. Is it any wonder that he would be able to grow such an amazingly iconic beard? Strangely enough, Lincoln never actually grew a beard until he decided to run for office. Honest Abe was a true outdoorsman who grew up splitting logs and hunting bears. But the presidential facial hair truly reached its peak in 1857 when the most beloved president of all time, Abraham Lincoln, entered the White House with one of the most beloved beards of all time. John Quincy Adams and Martin Van Buren started the trend by rocking mutton chops while they served as the sixth and eighth president, respectively. And, of course, our leaders couldn’t look any less rugged or manly.
These rugged adventurers needed an equally rugged hairstyle for their endeavors, so it’s no wonder beards, mustaches and other assorted facial hair became so trendy at that time they were symbols of true manliness. The country was getting bigger, and hundreds of men were finding their fortunes by heading out into the wild and hunting for furs or digging for gold. This was a period of bold Western expansion. Only 11 of our presidents have ever sported facial hair, and they all held office between 18. But by the beginning of the 1800s, they were waning in popularity all over the world, and it was time for our commanders in chief to make some executive decisions about brand new hairstyles. The powdered wig trend persisted through the early days of our country and on the heads of our next four presidents: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe. (Wigs were most commonly made out of goat hair in this era.) George Washington’s iconic white wig has become an inseparable part of his image, and to this day, it lives on in history books, presidential portraits and the face of our $1 bill. Powdered wigs became commonplace for men of a certain stature in the colonies, and when it was finally time for one of them to step into office, he wouldn’t have dared doing so without a pile of goat hair on his head.
Our Founding Fathers had a lot of problems with their former rulers from an Ocean away, but their fashion choices weren’t one of them. From the 1700s through the late 1800s, powdered wigs were all the rage in Europe wearing one was a symbol of rank and nobility.
But if you were a man during the early days of our country and you weren’t wearing an obvious hairpiece, then people were likely to think you were just some poor loser. Today, if you’re a man wearing an obvious hairpiece, you’re bound to endure a fair amount of dirty looks and rude comments. Paste this Image on Your Site! Presidential Looks: A Hair History of the USA Created By: Ogle School Looking back on the history of American presidents will also give you a good look at how hairstyles changed and evolved over time. But for hundreds of years now, our presidents have tended to sport the most common and popular hair trends of their time. Well … maybe not the hottest hairstyles - none of our presidents have ever been at the cutting edge of fashion. Hail to the hair! Since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, America hasn’t just looked to its leaders for strength and guidance we’ve also turned to the man in the White House for advice on all the hottest new hairstyles.
0 kommentar(er)
