Evolution of the Beard

When Charles Darwin was a younger man, he did not yet have the full, iconic beard he is generally known for. Instead, he had some mighty fine sideburns. And even as the years rolled by, his theory of evolution developed and his hairline receded, he still maintained only the sideburns.



But, while ill in 1862, he underwent a change that might be considered a form of punctuated equilibrium, and began growing a full beard. By the time he reappeared in public in 1866, it was full and powerful and even though he still had merely the sideburns when he published "On the Origin of Species" in 1859, one hundred and fifty years later the image that is used on the back cover of all subsequent reprints and the vision that leaps to our mind's eye whenever someone mentions the name of Charles Darwin, is as he looked with a fully evolved beard.

So great was his beard, one of the most famous beards in history, that the Natural History Museum in London displayed a lock of it in celebration of his 200th birthday.

No, really.

Working on the Railroad

William McCreery, a Washington County native, entered the railroad business around the time of the Civil War, building and running the Ashtabula, Youngstown and Pittsburg Railroad (AY&P), which was eventually leased by the Pennsylvania Railroad. After a disagreement with the PRR, McCreery resigned and built a competative railroad that became the Pittsburg & Lake Erie Railroad (P&LE). By the time he completed his 33rd year in business, he had built seven railway lines and held the presidency in four of them.

McCreery was also Chairman of Pittsburgh's Relief Committee for victims of the Johnstown Flood, on the board of directors for the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, was one of the organizers of Allegheny General Hospital and also worked on the Pittsburgh Association for the Relief of the Poor.

It's difficult to tell from this many time over copied photograph but it looks like Mr. McCreery has a slight smile accentuated by slight curve on the ends of his mustache. A railroad magnate who gave back to the community would certainly have something to smile about.

Engineering a City

Even though a Pennsylvania native, Alexander Hays lived in the City of Allegheny for less than a decade but for that time he was the city's chief engineer and bore responsibility for a number of projects. When the Civil War came, he returned to the military (he had served in the Mexican-American War), leading a charge at the Second Battle of Bull Run and a noted counterattack at Gettysburg. He was killed at the Battle of the Wilderness in Virginia and was buried with honors in Allegheny Cemetery in Lawrenceville.

General Hays was widely regarded as a hero by the residents of the City of Allegheny (annexed by the city of Pittsburgh in 1907).When Ulysses S. Grant was campaigning for the presidency, he stopped by the gravesite of his US Military Academy friend and openly wept.

High flyin

I simply cannot let this photograph go unremarked upon even though it is not actually from the 19th Century. Herein, three fine gentlemen with absolutely spectacular beards are enjoying the spoils of victory in the World Beard and Mustache Championships. The original by dogseat, using the newfangled color-process photography, was modified by Mousewrites into the more vintage and gloriously black and white format you see here.

I am insanely jealous of these gentlemen. Though I am proud of my own beard, it pales to insignificance before their mastery of the art.

It is a great tragedy of the 20th and 21st Centuries that such magnificence has fallen out of fashion yet there is some small comfort that in some small corners of the population a fine tradition of stylish masculinity endures and through the aethertubes, endures for posterity.

Heater

Loading unfinshed iron bars into a furnace for refinement was a difficult job. One needed to be highly skilled in judging the temperature of the bars and, as such, Adam Hart was one of the best paid workers in the Sligo Iron Works, once located beneath the Smithfield Street Bridge.

One might think that working with one's face near white-hot metal would preclude having a beard. Surely, such extravagance would surely burst into flames or singe away and, while this is a distinct possibility, many workers of metal cultivate full beards. Are they defiantly challenging the fates or is there some other, secret method to their madness?

Beards of Pittsburgh: Andrew Carnegie

In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the city of Pittsburgh, I will be featuring notable beards and the beards of notables from the Steel City.

The most notable of those notables is, of course, Andrew Carnegie. The teenage Carnegie settled in the city of Allegheny (now Pittsburg's North Side) in 1848. Starting as a telegraph messenger boy in the Pittsburgh Office of the Ohio Telegraph Company, at $2.20 per week he worked his way up to found and command Carnegie Steel Company and become one of the wealthiest men in the world. When Carnegie Steel was sold in 1901, he made $125 million off the deal.

For as much as Carnegie was the industrial heart of Pittsburgh, he also contributed significantly to it's soul. His philanthropy funded some 3,000 libraries, located in 47 states, 19 of them in Pittsburgh. He also founded the Carnegie Institute of Technology (today, Carnegie-Mellon University) and the Carnegie Museum.

"Man does not live by bread alone. I have known millionaires starving for lack of the nutriment which alone can sustain all that is human in man, and I know workmen, and many so-called poor men, who revel in luxuries beyond the power of those millionaires to reach. It is the mind that makes the body rich."

And his beard. . . his finely manicured beard evolved from something fairly mundane into a brilliant and famous white respectability. Many professionally made photographs show a stern demeanor, not unexpected for a multi-national tycoon controlling a massive steel empire, but when he chose to smile, his bead afforded Carnegie a grandfatherly appearance.

Beards of our Forefathers

David Malki, author of the online comic strip Wondermark, has produced this collection of humor entitled "Beards of our Forefathers". For those who do not know his comic, he takes period illustrations and adds captions and dialogue for humerus purposes. And while there are certainly beards to be found within, such as his marginally useful Pocket Guide to Ancestral Beards and Ironic Facial Hair Citation, he focuses very little upon the actual beards of our forefathers.

This is not to say I was disappointed in his book. Assuredly not. Even without beards and mustaches, the the humor is significant.