Joseph Palmer: Beard Martyr

Our friend Murderface sent me this link about Joseph Palmer, the transcendentalist and antebellum reformer who in 1830 went to prison to defend his right to have a beard.

I was unfamiliar with Palmer before this, but I find it interesting that in 1830, Americans were so opposed to beards that they would attack people for them. Yet by 1860, Abraham Lincoln is wearing a full beard and any reader of this blog has seen multiple examples of Gilded Age beards. I always assumed it was just a change in fashion. What I have not figured out yet is why antebellum Americans had this peculiar hostility. I suppose this has to do with some of the weird health and cleanliness movements of the time, but then beards became fashionable as these movements were still active.