I have always liked lists and kill time in meetings by naming European capitals (Quick: Azerbaijan.) or American rivers. So quite naturally, I started to list presidents backwards to see if I could get to the end - er, the beginning. I kept getting to McKinley and falling apart, even after looking them up repeatedly. That last quarter of the 19th C just all ran together even though I could pull out their names. I couldn't tell you a damn thing about most of them except that one was president twice, interrupted, and Benjamin Harrison was the grandson of another forgettable president. I tried working from the other end and would start waving my hands ineffectually after Van Buren. So the second quarter of the 19th C was weak as well. I might have lost track all the way up to Lincoln, but Franklin Pierce was from NH and it was easy to stuff in the one between him and Abe, James Buchanan.
It was gratifying, then, to listen to a history podcast and hear two historians joking about the same problem. They were talking about Reconstruction and the Gilded Age and confessed the presidents ran together for them. They both remembered that all had magnificent mustaches or beards, however, and called it The Golden Age of Facial Hair. Which it was. (Van Buren remains the all-time #1, however.) Their explanation was intriguing. For the forgettableness, I mean. They didn't offer an explanation about the hair. That period was one in which the corruption was so great, and so widely shared, and the presidents so consistently centrist compromise candidates, that they actually were less distinctive. I feel much better now.
4 comments:
It's hard to remember that the office of the presidency in the 19th C. was much weaker and more formal. Lincoln stands out because he colored way outside the lines.
I'm pretty good at crossword puzzles but am often tripped up by clues involving VPS, or middle names, or First Ladies' names. I couldn't tell you a darn thing about most presidents before Hoover.
But it's funny, often the right answer in a crossword is the first thing that pops into your head, and the name "Chester A. Arthur" popped into my head when I looked at that portrait, though I'm not consciously aware of knowing what most presidents before Roosevelt looked like. Washington and Lincoln would be the only ones I could pick out of a crowd.
I can do U.S. Grant!
I’ve been enjoying the renaissance of facial hair myself. I always wanted a 19th century beard.
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