Looking through O. Winston Link photos for some research I noticed something that I consider unusual. Just about everyone in both Steam Steel and Stars and The Last Steam Railroad in America are clean shaven. Is this something that was widespread during the period or was this something that was standard on the railroad? Help this young whipper snapper understand.
Thanks,
Derek
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Notch 6 posted:Looking through O. Winston Link photos for some research I noticed something that I consider unusual. Just about everyone in both Steam Steel and Stars and The Last Steam Railroad in America are clean shaven. Is this something that was widespread during the period or was this something that was standard on the railroad?
Just my opinion but, I believe that a LOT depends on the climate that the photos were taken. The men of the western railroads tended to have more "full facial hair" due to their sever, and long winters. While many more of the eastern railroaders that were photographed in the summer, i.e. warmer climate, were mostly clean shaven.
Help this young whipper snapper understand.
Thanks,
Derek
Beards and other facial hair goes through phases of popularity: it just wasn't popular in the 40s and 50s. You can see this absence of facial hair in many other photos from the era.
I think there may also have been different standards for dress and appearance in those days. Many companies, late into the 1970s, had policies regarding facial hair. Many sports teams or leagues didn't allow it and neither did many employers. I can't speak for the railroads but I wouldn't be surprised if there's someone on here that has a copy of a "uniform dress and appearance code" for one or another or the railroads that could enlighten us.
The reason I have worn a mustache since the day I marked up as a brakeman and ever since, having changed careers, is because I look like the monkey in Curious George children's literature without it. There was no "dress code" on the Frisco...you could find every look conceivable on our board during the 80's. This applies to hats and headwear as well.
Look at movies shot in the 40s and 50s. Nearly every man is clean shaved and most wore a suit with a tie to work. I have a photo of my grandfather hoeing his garden in a suit and tie. Most women wore hats in public. It was just the style of the day.
As a young boy, my parents made me wear a suit and tie whenever we went on a trip - especially a train trip. NH Joe
Notch 6 posted:Looking through O. Winston Link photos for some research I noticed something that I consider unusual. Just about everyone in both Steam Steel and Stars and The Last Steam Railroad in America are clean shaven. Is this something that was widespread during the period or was this something that was standard on the railroad? Help this young whipper snapper understand.
Thanks,
Derek
Just simply put, "those were the good old days."
There was a pres on the SP who wanted upper staff to wear hats. Straw in summer, felt in winter.
Suits. In summer. No A/C. In Houston.... And no one got heat stroke.
My dad wore a suit and fedora everyday until his retirement in 1987. Carried a briefcase too. He was shocked when women started wearing sneakers on the train, and carried their heels in their bag.
Also: tattoos were only seen on sailors and marines. and never on officers.
Jon 
I was born in 1942, and lived in the NYC metro area. Facial hair in men was sometimes seen as a moustache, but hardly ever as a beard. Tom Dewey ran for President in the last '40s in a VERY close election. Many say he lost because of his moustache. My uncle Gene had the only one I can remember.
He looked like the guy on the wedding cake...
Jon
I used to work for Gillette. As they tell it, Gillette got the contract to supply the military with razors during WW1 and WW2, so the GIs got into the habit of shaving and the clean shaven look caught on when they returned home. That was also the era that Gillette and other companies were making improvements to the safety razor system so it was easier and easier to get a good shave at home.
My understanding, and I could be wrong, is that facial hair for American men was largely influenced by WW1 and WW2. Particularly WW1, you need to be clean shaven for a gas mask to work. Being clean shaven was simply a fact of life for that generation, and as for the mainstream, a mustache was the exception.
Dominic Mazoch posted:There was a pres on the SP who wanted upper staff to wear hats. Straw in summer, felt in winter.
Suits. In summer. No A/C. In Houston.... And no one got heat stroke.
Was that Benjamin Biaggini (who I believe was one of the last SP Presidents before it was acquired by the UP) or someone earlier?
New Haven Joe posted:Look at movies shot in the 40s and 50s. Nearly every man is clean shaved and most wore a suit with a tie to work. I have a photo of my grandfather hoeing is back garden in a suit and tie. Most women wore hats in public. It was just the style of the day.
As a young boy, my parents made me wear a suit and tie whenever we went on a trip - especially a train trip. NH Joe
"'most wore a suit with a tie to work"
Looking at the photos of the time you would think everyone was working all the time. Looking at the pictures in the Ron Hollander book of all the people looking at trains they all had suits and ties.
Facial hair, like so many fashions, is cyclical. As noted above, it was mostly out of fashion in the '20s through the '50s in the US. My parents both abhorred facial hair and were very frustrated that I grew a mustache in the '80s (my upper lip hasn't seen daylight since December of 1981). I had to wait till I was 18 (well, almost: I got to start a little early because I needed one for my part in our high school musical the next spring).
I haven't seen my upper lip since 1977. I also wear a beard because I have a very strong chin, both of them. ;-)
Fortescue, for his part, prefers the clean-shaven look.
Mitch
The 40's and 50's were definitely clean shaven years. The only beard I remember on TV was Gabby Hayes on the Hopalong Cassidy show.
In the early 60's some of us college students grew beards. Shaved when I worked for a bank but grew one again when I started grad school in the late 60's. My daughters never saw me without one until I lost my hair due to chemo. Its back now.
I took a look at all my O scale men on my layout and not one of them had any beards! . might have to rethink about that... (lol) daniel
When I was growing up in the 1940's I once asked my mother why men didn't wear beards like during the Civil War. She replied that she thought beards were unsanitary!
Some of the women in our family had facial hair.
Off the topof my head, I am thinking Russell as the SP prez
Scotie posted:The 40's and 50's were definitely clean shaven years. The only beard I remember on TV was Gabby Hayes on the Hopalong Cassidy show.
In the early 60's some of us college students grew beards. Shaved when I worked for a bank but grew one again when I started grad school in the late 60's. My daughters never saw me without one until I lost my hair due to chemo. Its back now.
There was also Paul Brinegar who play the character of Wishbone ( camp cook ) in the long running TV series Rawhide. Also the singer Burl Ives and the TV personality/ conductor Mitch Miller, jazz musicians Al Hirt and Pete Fountain who were often seen on TV.
Musicians were generally more hip than your average male in that time. Showbiz folk also sometimes marched to a different beat.
As a battalion CBR NCO (1963-65), I regularly conducted protective (gas) mask drills and gas chamber exercises using both tear gas and gaseous chlorine. Having any significant facial hair would have impacted the correct fit of the mask. At the very least, it would have taken longer to fit over the beard, thus allowing the chemical agents to more readily enter the mask! The material of the mask at that time was probably less flexible than today's more advanced polymers.
trumptrain posted:the TV personality/ conductor Mitch Miller
My namesake, oddly enow*. But I like to think my beard is better. 
Mitch
*I dodged a bullet when my father changed his name to Michael M. Marmel a decade or so before I was born. I COULD have been Moishe Maurice Marmelstein, Jr.
Dominic Mazoch posted:Off the topof my head, I am thinking Russell as the SP prez
Ah yes - Donald J. Russell (1952-1964)
In the early 1900s, especially during WWI, the world went into a panic over the various influenza outbreaks. So many men squeezed onto ships, into railroad cars and then to the trench warfare spread disease to one another. Since they were just beginning to trace the disease, and not yet predict the pathology, the doctors of the time felt that facial hair collected disease. Kissing and other close contact spread the disease. Along with the need for the face masks to fit properly, the doughboys would shave clean to stay healthy. With victory for the Americans, the heroes of the day led to other men shaving to keep a modern "manly" appearance. Some stars, like Oliver Hardy, Groucho Marx and Charlie Chaplin had the mustache as part of their character, but it was more a part of the joke in the 1920s... not a fashion statement. In the 30s and 40s, some actors like Errol Flynn and Clark Gable had thin mustaches, but that made them seem romantic, and most men did not follow that trend. With WWII, the soldiers and sailors had to be clean shaven when on shore leave. In "The Caine Mutiny," Herman Wouk writes about the unusual beard designs men grew on the ship, but they had to shave when the ship docked. I think that TV cameras also preferred the clean look of a man in the 1950s, so this perpetuated the concept for a bit longer. It wasn't until the counter-culture of the 1960s adopted facial hair as part of their look to be more anti-establishment that beards and mustaches were seen more often. Color TV cameras, with sharper images, seemed to help in spreading the look. It also helped certain actors or singers stand out from the crowd if they had a signature beard look.
Definitely there are trends, but there are also reasons behind the trends.
Another point of reference. As I've heard JFK set a trend of not wearing hats, we can also look to the Presidency as the last one to wear facial hair was Taft who left office in 1913.
A couple points...after the Oscar Wilde scandal in 1890's Britain, long hair and (for some unclear reason, since he was clean shaven his whole life) beards came to be connected in people's minds with homosexuality. Men after that tended to wear short hair and be clean shaven. As noted, many companies required employees to be clean-shaven. I recall that coming up when I applied for a job at a car-rental firm in the 1980's, so it was still around then.
I would separate beards and moustaches though. Moustaches were fairly common thru the 20th century, partly spurred I think by movie stars like Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, John Barrymore, Ronald Coleman, etc. Also, since someone mentioned Tom Dewey, I recall a teacher who had been in campus anti-war protests in the 1960's saying that it seemed odd to him at the time that so many protesters had facial hair, since when he was a kid most guys with moustaches were Republicans, copying Dewey's 'stache.
Re suits, men wearing suits / ties everyday was normal before about 1970. My dad wore a shirt and tie to high school in the 1930's, as did college students. You can find many pictures of major league baseball games into the 1960's where most men are wearing ties, suit coats, and hats. At this year's Milwaukee Road Hist. Soc. convention, one presenter mentioned that he had to do business at US Steel's HQ in Pittsburgh for the railroad several times during the 1950's-60's, and that men back then were not allowed in the building without a suit and tie - no sportscoats, it had to be a suit with the slacks and jacket being the same color.
dkdkrd posted:6 years later, Joltin' Joe Namath joined her in a continuation of this encouragement.
I think you've either mixed up your nicknames, or your Joes.
smd4 posted:dkdkrd posted:6 years later, Joltin' Joe Namath joined her in a continuation of this encouragement.
I think you've either mixed up your nicknames, or your Joes.
Right. Joe DeMaggio was "Joltin' Joe", while Joe Namath was "Broadway Joe".
Let's have some more Gunilla commercials... shaving never had it sooooo gooood !!!!!
Oh to be young again.
chuga chuga choo choo !
Hey, what about the 1960's Barbara Feldon commercial?
My dad also wore a suit and hat to work and when he dressed casually he still wore a hat.
My grandmother had a picture of my uncle getting a shave on a submarine in WW II. Sadly it (USS Lagarto) was lost late in the war.
When I was in high school I started with long sideburns. Since then I have gone through periods of mustache or full beard or clean shaven. At work a dress shirt and tie were the norm. (Famously, if you worked at IBM the shirt had to be white.) Eventually there were "casual Fridays" which evolved to "wear what you like" in the 2000's.
I watch a lot of old movies. Sometimes the beards were worn for the part. I am mostly struck by the ubiquity of cigarettes and liquor in those days.
I am a classic film buff and watch many on TCM. Lit cigarettes abound as it was so integral to the culture of the day. The liquor also flowed freely in many nightclub scenes. Those celebrities made smoking look like the cool thing to do, and in that way, actually promoted it. When I did my Army service (1962-65), small cigarette packs were still included in the C Rations.
Yes, I spend a lot of time on TCM. Cigarettes are treated as a necessity of life. When someone is dying they ask for, or are given, a cigarette and all is well. And a lot of bumming cigarettes or lights. Whenever, someone enters a house or apartment they are offered a drink. The Thin Man movies raise this to an art.
TCM has some good train movies or movies with train scenes. Like Danger Lights or Other Men's Women. Murder in the Private Car is a comedy with a gorilla on a train - part of the beast in the baggage car gets loose genre. Currently I have Twentieth Century recorded to re-watch.
Cam: I particularly like the film noir classics. Dick Powell, like Bogie, also did some credible work in that genre. An outstanding one is Out of the Past with Robert Mitchum and femme fatale, Jane Greer.
I go for screwball comedies, westerns, war movies and noir. TCM had a great bank heist movie with Robert Ryan, Ed Begley and Harry Belafonte: Odds Against Tomorrow (1959). And, it takes place near the NYC tracks in Hudson NY.
Looks like you have a handle on it. 
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