Fashions in Shaving and Trimming of the Beard, 1842-1972 [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

Fashions in Shaving and Trimming of the Beard, 1842-1972 [pdf]

uvm.edu

124 pointsmxfh37 comments

Need to very careful over this data. For example it was compulsory from the Crimean war (1856) until 1916 for British soldiers not shave above their top lip[1]. In the PDF it is stated that he doesn't exclude military pictures so I suspect there may be quite a strong bias here.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_hair_in_the_military#Uni...

Why bias? It's not like military is detached from fashion. The paper is very specific:

"Fashions in Shaving and Trimming of the Beard: The men of Illustrated London News"

I recall reading about Amish men and why they grow a bead but no moustache apparently it was a protest against military organizations where a moustache was mandatory.

Presumably after the Crimean War, otherwise Dr James Barry (http://www.notablebiographies.com/supp/Supplement-A-Bu-and-O...) could never have succeeded in her subterfuge.

Tool Tip:

If you ever see an old journal article like this and you want to extract the data check out g3data:

  Description-en: extract data from scanned graphs
    g3data is used for extracting data from graphs.  For example, graphs
    are typically published in scientific journals without tables of the
    actual data; g3data makes the process of extracting these data easy.

http://www.frantz.fi/software/g3data.php

This web-based alternative is pretty great too: http://arohatgi.info/WebPlotDigitizer/app/

I wish there was current data.

The Hipster Peak of the 2010s will certainly make its way into the annals of beardology, with a corresponding increase in skirt width 21 years earlier, of course.

http://nypost.com/2014/02/25/hipster-wannabes-forking-over-t...

For some reason I thought this would just be a album of beard pictures... But on viewing I realized that's probably not something HN would vote to the front page.

Reading this paper makes me want to see an album of the illustrations!

I was hoping for photos to demonstrate these fashions. Alas, I will have to imagine...

This reminds of a comment I saw a couple of days back [1].

Someone should really gather the data and study the influence of beardedness on programming language success, now that we have a background to subtract!

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7298672

The correlation between men's beard frequency and women's skirt width over more than 100 years is remarkable.

Except the author adjusted the timelines to match them up. The skirt widths are shifted by 21 years.

The author claims to have done that to account for the relative age differences between the women (generally younger models) and the men (generally older "successful" men) featured in the magazine. If that is the case (and not just an excuse) then you might expect a bearded man to be of the same generation as a wide-skirted woman that appeared 21 years earlier.

Even if you didn't shift the graphs, though, the data would still be striking. It'd likely remind me of a predator-prey graph (e.g. http://www2.estrellamountain.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/graph... ) which is "easily" modeled with differential equations.

This is a completely valid statistical approach. The author isn't hiding anything, the graph is clearly labeled.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-correlation

I'm actually wondering whether facial hair is reciprocal to women's rights. The trend reverts around 1890, which correlates well with women's suffrage.

I once walked down the long hallway of a medical school that featured class pictures of every year back into the 1800s. The black and white photos made it visually apparent which years had more facial hair (until more recently when women started being admitted).

I have always wished I'd taken the time to count the data and look at the pattern... but it turns out someone has already done this research.

U of T medical school has a similar set of class composites which do a great job of showing gender and race changes over the years.

I was happy to see the NHL's facial hair promotion end last Fall, looked like Village People cover band auditions every night for a month. Ack!

I've been wearing a beard for 18 years b/c razors irritate my face, imagine my elation to hear they are fashionably 'cool' again. I'm hoping this too passes quickly.

Neal Stephenson described a very similar (fictional) paper in Cryptonomicon. "Unshavenness as Signifier in World War II Movies."

http://www.euskalnet.net/larraorma/crypto/slide8.html

This reminds me of the article I read this morning about beard transplants becoming popular in NYC.

This one?

http://nypost.com/2014/02/25/hipster-wannabes-forking-over-t...

Let's not confuse the New York Post with quality journalism. The only number mentioned is the number of transplants performed per week, and it's not obvious from the quote that all the recipients are 'hipsters'.

Indeed, some may be circus women.

I like how you can't just be "a dude who wants a thicker beard." You have to be a "hipster wannabe" so we can properly establish who deserves mockery and who will be delivering it.

via Conrad Quilty-Harper [1]

and here [2] is the article he wrote. Including some original research in form of a comparison of to a current issue of the Daily Mirror.

[1] https://twitter.com/Coneee/status/439058586782552064

[2] http://ampp3d.mirror.co.uk/2014/02/27/the-return-of-the-bear...

I wish I could grow a beard. But my Irish-Native american heritage currently only allows me to grow about 75 +/- 10 hairs of blonde-reddish scraggly facial hair. However, I have been told that during my 30s things might change.

The earlier you start with daily doses of whisky and steak, the better.

No steak, potato

How long should you hold them to your face?

Just from day to day observance here on the west coast of the US it appears beards are making a comeback.

Same in London, and much of the 'fashion' parts of the UK (Manchester, Liverpool, Edinbrough)

A lot of this type of beard: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/07/article-2385822-1B...

I've always enjoyed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDpYBT0XyvA&feature=kp

Not sure beards ever went away here in the South.

I did a big job a year ago and had to recruit two young guys for my team(21 & 24). Neither had met the other before and they both had neat, groomed beards. Early on they both complimented me on my late winter 'griz' and issued their complaints about itching, debris collection & the unavoidable mess that is beard trimming(pro tip: do it outside). I inquired why they had them if they hated it & they both said their girlfriend was a fan of Greys Anatomy & the bo-hunk actors all had them so they had to grow theirs, too.

edit: OT removed

This could be more interesting if there were pictures in it...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com