President-elect Abraham Lincoln receives a letter from a child criticizing his face, encouraging him to grow a beard.
Abraham Lincoln grew a beard in late 1860, after his November election to the Presidency. Nothing for him would be the same after that. The beard and his Presidency were linked together. The beard may not have been seen on campaign posters, but was forever afterward part of his iconic image on everything from official White House photographs to the penny.
Previously clean-shaven, the new President-elect bided his time growing his new beard in the time period after the tumultuous election of 1860 and March 4, 1861, when he was to take his oath of office as President. The formerly thin-faced and pockmarked visage of the tall and lanky lawyer and former Congressman from Illinois had received gentle criticism from a 12-year old girl about his face. Her letter to him, possibly, is what ended Mr. Lincoln’s clean-shaven days.
The little girl from Westfield, New York, named Grace Bedell, promised to get her brothers to vote for Lincoln if Mr. Lincoln grew a beard. She insisted that he “would be much improved in appearance, provided you would cultivate whiskers.”
“You would look a great deal better as your face is so thin,” young Grace continued, “All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President.”
The letter was dated October 15, 1860, written before the November election, and Lincoln replied to it immediately on October 19th, “As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affect[ta]tion if I were to begin now?” He was reportedly so amused by the letter, that he carried it long afterward to make a joke of himself.
He was 51 years old at the time of his election, the youngest man up until that time to be elected President. Perhaps he felt the beard not only covered flaws in his face, but gave him a look of maturity and authority, which he would soon need to lead the nation during the coming years of its worst crisis.
Not everyone liked the beard, most were surprised by his sudden decision to grow one, and Lincoln was ridiculed in some newspapers that his so-called “manly adornment” was indeed an affectation.
For at least one businessman, Lincoln’s decision to grow a beard was a personal calamity. A young Milton Bradley, future manufacturer of board games, had a business in lithography in Springfield, Massachusetts, printing popular illustrations for sale. When Bradley heard the news about Lincoln’s new beard, the prints he was trying to sell of a photograph of the beardless Lincoln taken in early 1860 were now outmoded. Thinking that no one would want a picture of the new President that was not recognizable, Bradley destroyed thousands of what he felt were now worthless merchandise, and grew despondent, until he got an idea to print board games instead.
On his grand tour from Illinois to the Washington for his inaugural, Lincoln stopped in Westfield, New York to visit Grace Bedell and show her his new whiskers. He was the first President to wear a beard while in office.
Abraham Lincoln did not need the beard to get elected, but forever afterward his beard was part of his famous face.
Sources:
David Herbert Donald, “Lincoln” (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1995).
Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr., Philip B. Kunhardt III, Peter W. Kunhardt, “Lincoln - An
Illustrated Biography” (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992).
Milton Bradley Company, Division of Hasbro
