Victorian Studies

Oldstone-Moore, Christopher, 1962-
The Beard Movement in Victorian Britain
Victorian Studies - Volume 48, Number 1, Autumn 2005, pp. 7-34

Indiana University Press

Christopher Oldstone-Moore - The Beard Movement in Victorian Britain - Victorian Studies 48:1 Victorian Studies 48.1 (2005) 7-34 The Beard Movement in Victorian Britain Christopher Oldstone-Moore Wright State University In the middle of the nineteenth century the face of masculinity suddenly changed in Western culture. In a few short years, full beards spread from the social margins inhabited by artists and Chartists into the respectable mainstream. This transformation of men's faces has thus far drawn remarkably little comment from historians or literary critics. The Victorians, by contrast, had a great deal to say about this renovation of the masculine image. In pamphlets, polemical books, and the periodical press, Victorians engaged in a lively discussion that sheds light on changing notions of masculinity and illuminates the decision of millions of British men to spurn more than a century of tradition by letting their beards grow. The timing of this change is significant. The current standard line on this great change was established by G. M. Trevelyan, who explained the new style as an imitation of the heroic and hirsute soldiers returning from the Crimea (549). But the trend was well underway before the war began in 1854. More importantly Trevelyan's explanation obscures the deeper social roots and cultural significance of this impulse towards remaking the masculine image. When one attends to the conversation about manliness and beards, what...