How Come No US Presidents In The Last Century Wore Facial Hair?

Question

Just one of my many observations but I noticed that not since President Taft from the early 1900s that not one US president after him wore facial hair; going all the way up to Bush today?

Why is this so? Did facial hair grow out of fashion and nobody decided to have the last century?

Answer 1

This relates back all the way to WWI. In Germany in the late 1800's to early 1900's, facial hair was extremely popular. Not just normal beards, but extravagant and flamboyant beard hairstyles were wore. The more extravagant you wore your beard the high ranking you usually were in society. When the WWI &  WWII broke out, most german-american and even normal americans avoided wearing extravagant beards and the politicians stopped wearing beards all together because nobody wanted to be labed as a n**i (WWII) sympathizer. This lead to the death of the facial hair in most politicians and it continues to this day. Hope this helps!

Answer 2

There was a general belief that after technology made shaving easy for every man to do in his own home, that a man who chose to have facial hair was hiding something or was just untrustworthy--like the villain who ties down the damsel on the rails.

Answer 3

The age of bearded American Presidents was a brief interlude and the man who started the trend, Abraham Lincoln was clean shaven when he ran for and won the office, growing his beard in response to a letter from a young girl who suggested he would be more handsome if he covered up his mug with a beard.  Actually facial hair has rarely been in fashion and for politcians it has always been 'suspect,' the thought that a man with a beard is hiding his face.  

But yes full beards fell out of fashion and the closest that America has come to electing a man with facial hair to the highest office was Thomas Dewey in 1948 (and Hillary Clinton in 2008).........

Peace//////////////////////////\\\\\\\...

Answer 4

maybe its because shaving makes people look like they are hermits who live in the middle of nowhere

Answer 5

I think beards went out of fashion in the early 20th century and never really came back into fashion, except among hippies in the 1960s.