We Invent Products That, in turn, Reinvent Us: Lincoln and the Hirsute Republicans

Abraham Lincoln rather famously grew a beard just before he was elected president, apparently inspired by an 11-year-old girl who suggested it would help him to get elected. He was the first president to have a beard.

He was followed by a succession of Republican presidents with facial hair.

Lincoln and the hirsute Republicans championed policies that made America host to an industrial revolution that triggered a parade of new products.

The list of product inventions from around 1900 includes central heating; stainless steel implements; the electric toaster, iron, and oven; the sewing machine; the dishwasher; the electric elevator; the dial phone; the portable typewriter; radium treatment for breast cancer; heart surgery; the psychiatric clinic; contact lenses; toothpaste in tubes; motion pictures; musical comedy; the gramophone; volleyball and basketball; the Ferris wheel; the jukebox; the striptease; breakfast cereals; milk delivered in bottles; packaged produce; Coca-Cola; margarine; the ice cream cone; the refrigerator; the correspondence course; the full-range department store; the chain store; the shopping center; the coin telephone; the traveler’s check; fingerprinting; the automatic pistol; the electric chair; the automobile and the airplane; the underground city subway train; the pneumatic tire; color photography; rayon and other artificial textiles; and chewing gum.

These products changed the human experience in thousands of ways we can hardly describe.
In 1901, King Gillette invented the disposable safety razor that made it easy for men to shave. It took a while to catch on.

President William Howard Taft, who served until 1913, had a mustache, in keeping with the theme of facial hair for presidents. But by 1915, Gillette sold 70 million blades to a public who had adopted the clean-shaven look. This product changed how men looked.

No president since Taft has had facial hair. (Well, other than eyebrows.) We invent products and then they reinvent us.