the rest of the story. The candidate meets with his campaign staff. He says a trusted
advisor has urged a revolutionary revision in his public image. It has to do with the
candidate's physical appearance. And then he explains the advisor's specific advice.
Campaign staff asks the candidate if he's really certain that he wants to do this.
And the candidate says yes, he's not seeking any further advice on the matter. He's merely
stating how it's going to be. However, there's a potential problem here. The advisor, who has
made the unusual and potentially risky suggestion is not on the campaign staff, has come from left
field, so to speak. Now, perhaps the entire election is on the line, may succeed or fail based
on this one significant change in the candidate's looks. A change in fact in the candidate's face.
And thus in 1860 Abraham Lincoln grew a beard. Yes, he won the election. Yes, he became
president of the United States, but this is the rest of the story. It's been called most famous
face in American history. One with sharp features, haunted eyes, and yet strangely a wonkiller.
That of the president, posterity, and reveres has the great immense of later, Abraham Lincoln.
What seemed to soften, what has been described as the power and pathos in that face is its beard.
Lincoln's former law partner, William H. Herndon, who did not approve of the sudden switch to
whiskers, called him, of course, stiff and ungraceful. A crop of blacking brush variety, he said.
It spoiled Lincoln's face, he said. But Herndon's was then a minority opinion.
Indeed of the nine man elected president, after him only McKinley was beardless and Lincoln,
who unwittingly set the trend had never even mildly considered whiskers until October of 1860,
when he was so urged by this advisor. The basis of the advice was twofold. First, Lincoln's face
was quite thin. The features angular, a beard would mitigate that. Second, women of the day seemed
to like beards, though they did not vote. Lincoln's advisor assured him that women had enough
influence over their husbands' votes to influence an election. We'll never know whether the great
emancipator, the man who altered the course of the nation forever, won his first election of
that highest office by a whisker. But I'll tell you if he did, he had but one person to thank.
In fact, he did thank that person. On route from Illinois to Washington, D.C., the president
elect stopped his train in Westfield, New York. This advisor's hometown, from the rear of the
train of Triumph and Lincoln called out to the crowd. I say, as she here, is Grace Medell anywhere
here and Grace Medell was there. And as she was ushered through the parting sea of people,
the nation's new leader explained how Grace in a letter had, quote, kindly admonished me
to let my whiskers grow. Well, they assembled applauded and Grace ascended the platform.
And when the two were side by side on the platform, what would become the most famous face in American
history, kissed Grace on the cheek, and again the crowd roared its approval and reporters
rushed off with the story that Abraham Lincoln had changed his image that Abraham Lincoln had
made himself over against the advice of seasoned political sages upon the advice of an 11
year young girl. And now you know the rest of the story.
