About the section
Dr. Amanda Furman’s bi-monthly column is published in the Wall Street Journal and is published exclusively in the Globes. In this column, she says, she “searches the past for the origins of today’s world”
Dr. Amanda Furman is an American-British biographer and historian. She wrote five award-winning history books and served as a judge on the Booker Prize Committee and the US National Book Award
There’s a reason why you see more old people on TV or on the street in the fall. It has nothing to do with the revival of the Victorian aesthetic, the eruption of hair follicles or the conquest of the USA by hipsters.
This is an international campaign that aims to encourage men to grow facial hair, and this is to raise money for associations fighting cancer. “No Shave November” and its Australian relative, “Movember,” are annual events that call for men to ditch their razors for a month. The goal, as written on the November No Shave website, is to “accept our hair, which many cancer patients lose, and let it grow wild and free.”
Trivia
1
Why did Alexander the Great order his soldiers to shave their beards during the conquest of Asia?
2
Who advised US President Abraham Lincoln to grow a beard?
3
Who invented the electric shaver?
For answers, scroll to the end of the article
The shaved men from the caves
Hair has always been an issue among men. Archaeologists have discovered cave paintings, 100,000 years old, which commemorate figures without facial hair, which proves that even then some of our Homo sapiens ancestors preferred a clean-shaven appearance. Seashells were used as a tool to pluck hair from the face, just like epilation, only without the modern benefit of pain relief. Because the average beard has about 15,500 hairs, pulling out each and every one required extraordinary endurance.
According to the company that manufactures the Gillette razors, the first razors were probably invented about 30,000 years ago. These were flint blades, which like their modern counterparts were thrown away once dulled. They were the shaving tool of choice for men, until the Egyptians managed to improve the copper razor around 3000 BC.
The gold and silver elders of the pharaohs
Over a period of time, Egyptian fashion dictated the shaving of body hair, from head to toe. The pharaohs wore false beards of gold and silver, which they tied behind their ears with ribbons. Queen Hatshepsut (1458-1507 BC) wore her beard with pride, making her the first bearded woman. She had no rival until the 14th century Saint Vilgaportis, who grew a beard to avoid marriage. She is sometimes portrayed as the patroness of unmarried women. happily
The transition to stronger iron hairs occurred at the same time that fashion became looser when it came to the cheeks and jawline. The Greeks preferred the bearded look, the Romans liked the shaved look. The Persians dyed their beards red, while the British tribes opted for a Charlie Chaplin style moustache.
● When and why was our work schedule shortened to 40 hours a week?
● In what creative ways did past cultures deal with economic collapses?
● Panic for the black gold: what motivated humanity from the dawn of history to look for oil?
The elders of the insane in the 18th century
No consensus was formed regarding men’s fashion until the Enlightenment, when “open face” became synonymous with open and curious mind. When the Russian ruler Peter the Great (1672-1725) decided to bring Russia out of the Middle Ages, he ordered the men in his kingdom to shave their beards and encouraged the women to read. Until the end of the 18th century, only madmen and dubious types flaunted a beard on their face.
In the poem “The Time of the Ancient Mariner”, the 18th century English poet Samuel Coleridge indicates the coming of danger, long before the albatross (a species of seabird) entered the poem. In the first stanza the sailor is described with “a long gray beard and a twinkle in his eyes”. If that wasn’t enough, he is described as a “gray-bearded madman” in the third stanza.
The long beards of the Americans
The Victorians, on the other hand, rejected everything their grandparents believed in when it came to hair, and turned the beard into another sign of ambition. When it comes to beard length, the Americans definitely won: just compare the length of Charles Darwin’s beard to that of Gideon Welles (1878-1802), the US Secretary of the Navy under Abraham Lincoln, who was unusually hairy. But until Rutherford’s time B. Hayes (1822-1893), the man who holds the title of president with the longest beard in US history, pogonophilia (love of facial hair) is more or less over.
Nowadays, except in a few neighborhoods in Brooklyn, a full beard or full beard has become about as rare a sight as VCRs. When November arrives, this slogan will return to the front of the stage: hairy today, smooth tomorrow.
Trivia answers
1. In the 3rd century BC, during the conquest of Asia, Alexander the Great’s army was defeated in several battles against the Persians. These used to grab Mokedon’s soldiers by their beards and pull them from their horses, thus causing their death.
2. Grace Bedell, an 11-year-old girl from New York. When Lincoln ran for president in 1860, he received a letter from her, in which she advised him to grow a beard and mustache to look better and more reliable. After being elected, he grew his famous beard and became the first bearded president in US history.
3. The American inventor and entrepreneur Jacob Schick, who in 1928 registered the patent in his name.