Here is an article from a 1948 Collier’s Magazine that reported on the origin of Abraham Lincoln’s famous beard.
“I am a little girl only 11 years old, but want you should be President of the United States very much, so I hope you won’t think me very bold to write to such a great man as you are. Have you any little girls about as large as I am if so give them my love and tell her to write to me if you cannot answer this letter. I have got 4 brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow, I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President.”
The rest is history.
Click here to read an 1862 review about the Civil War photographs of Mathew Brady.
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