Rake

Being such a rakish style of beard, one would think to find more examples of the famous Van Dyke. Alas, photographic examples have been notoriously difficult to come by. But we must thank the State of Ohio yet again for another fine gentleman with a fine beard.

All the better to hear you with

The neckbeard is an interesting adornment in that the wearer takes the care to shave the sensitive cheeks and the challenging edges above the lip and along the jawline but grows the beard on the neck, perhaps the easiest place to shave. He has obviously chosen this look specifically and not merely grown a beard out of some distaste for the act of shaving.

Contemporary commentary on the neckbeard derisively implies that "nerds" choose this style to conceal a double or weak chin but an investigation of cabinet cards form the Century of the Beard shows no such correlation. I can't speculate on the actual reasons for choosing the neckbeard but these gentlemen of the late 19th Century had clearly not chosen it to conceal obesity and they were most assuredly not "nerds".

I conjecture that those who heap such scorn upon the neckbeard only wish they could be manly enough to grow such an accessory and still retain the dignity of the Ohioan pictured here.

But, on a completely unrelated note. . . what is it with Ohioans? Last week I posted a picture of a man with a unique pair of eyes, this man has himself some impressive ears. But, again, this man has chosen the neckbeard when some nice sideburns might have diminished their prominence. He is clearly proud of his ears and his beard.

The eyes of Ohio are upon you

One can't help but wonder what it is about this Ohioan's eyes. I know, this site is all about the beards,and I will agree that this man has a mighty fine circle beard, one whose magnificence I hope to emulate in my later years, but my attention can't help but be drawn to his mismatched eyes.

The one more open than the other; is it simply a matter of the muscles of his eyelids? Is he reacting to a difference in lighting? They do not seem to be focused on the same point in space. Could one of them be glass? Look at each one separately and they seem full of life and so, based on no evidence whatsoever, I conclude that his eyelids are merely different.

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.