Watching PBS lately and because of my interest in D/E shaving I notice that all the motion pictures show people in food lines & work lines & they all seem to be closely shaved. I wonder what that is all about? Any ideas? Lots & lots of close shaven men in soup lines? I wonder what was going on in that respect?
Put your best foot forward - that's just how people were back then. Pictures from The Great Depression show unemployed guys that were well groomed & wearing three piece suits selling apples on the street.
The greatest generation. No matter how hard things were, self pride and optimism were never lost. A mind set I wish more and more everyday some people would adopt. I wasn't around then but family stories and lots of reading of the time enlightened me.
There are but a few people left from that era that will recall the desperate times and conditions. Most people from that time who are alive today were either young children or babies. My dad, who has long since past, only described it as something for disciplinary verbiage to admonish my siblings and me. But he was always clean shaven his whole life. People lived up to a higher standard back then. Golly, when I was in high school we couldn't even wear jeans. So I could only speculate what grooming standards were like back then. Many came from European immigrant families whose parents I'm sure felt their families should make a good impression. And look at the shaving tools they had. One of my best razors is a Gillette New. They worked hard when they could find it. And they looked good doing it.
Just a different mindset back then. A man would no more leave his house unshaven than he would forget his hat. Also the Great War (what we now call WWI) had ended a mere decade before, and many of those men were ex-soldiers who had to shave daily in the trenches to keep the face smooth enough to get a good seal for the gas masks. They brought those habits home with them.
The price of things was different back then. Food was expensive. Now it's all but free. McDonald's breakfast $3.00. Razor and the means to sharpen it, was and is negligible. Lots of soap back then for pennies. A good suit could last a man years and it was cheaper than heating a house. Now days a suit looks bad after a few months and people spend a fortune on home heating, AC and cable TV. There was a sense of pride and men took pride in themselves. Nowadays it's man sandals and slob clothing that looks like it belongs on a rodeo clown. Myself included.
My dad was born in 1918, and so was a product of the depression and WWII. I cannot ever recall seeing him, or any of my uncles who were somewhat close in age, unshaven. As one would expect, those two monumental events shaped the rest of their lives, their work ethic, and values. One of those values was being clean shaven.
They might have been unemployed and dirt poor, or even homeless, but they weren't bums. That's why they were clean shaven if at all possible. Unless they sported a beard or a mustache, men were clean shaven until sometime around the early 1990s. Then the unshaven look was seen as cool. I always failed to see how looking scruffy was cool.
Not really related to the topic at hand, but interesting in the abstract, when I was researching Farina Gegenūber's Original Kölnisch Wasser (Eau de Cologne) I ran across an interview with the family member that runs the company today. Here is an excerpt from that interview: "...around 1720-30 a rosoli flacon [approx. 125 ml. bottle] cost one Reichstaler. Now consider that a high ranking Councillor made 120 Reichstaler a year, an independent artisan with apprenctices and all made about four Reichstaler a month. Eau de Cologne was an absolute luxury product." Read more: http://www.basenotes.net/interviews/20090617.html#ixzz3pBnd8WVV A 125 ml bottle costs € 56,00 today. Most of us would consider that to be expensive, but affordable. A bottle used to cost a skilled artisan a week's wages.
My father was born in 1919. I remember only one time he had a two day growth. In 1967 or 68, the Hong Kong Flu hit our community. He was to sick to get out of bed and missed one day shaving. Even as he lay dying of cancer 16 years ago, he was always clean shaven. His generation did not go around with a few day growth.
I miss those times when a man made something out of himself. Today, too many look like they couldn't care less about their looks or even have adopted a "hobo-look" for a style because they're too lazy to shave and comb their hair. I tell ya, I'll almost bet my fortune that all those bearded dudes today have beards out of laziness and because they hate shaving. I have just spend a week on holiday with bearded dudes whom only reason to not be clean shaves is that, and I quote: "Shaving sucks big time!". Yeah I'm turning into a grumpy old man. Can't help it Now, where's my darn hat??
I would still expect someone to be closely shaved and well dressed when they apply for a job, or have an interview. Edit: or well groomed, of course.
I had a beard for 39 years. If you keep it trimmed, it needs attention every few day and daily washing. Lazy is not keeping the beard trimmed or/and clean. "Proper beard care" (in my view) only cuts the grooming time about 30 minutes total a week. I grew it in college with a large group of men. I liked the warmth it added in the cold months and never cut it off till this summer. I do not plan to grow it back. I love the feel of the hot wet towel on my face before shaving. I hate multi-blade shavers, if I do not use one twice a day, the blades clog with beard growth.
In our parents generation and earlier you generally got cleaned up, dressed up by today's standards, to go in public. My wife recalled a time when her family went to a Cleveland Indians game. Her dad wore a suit and my wife had to wear a dress, hat and white gloves. Today getting "dressed up" means putting on a clean pair of sweats.
So true. Sad, but true. I'm probably not the only one who is annoyed by young couples with three kids, paying for food with food stamp cards while chatting on $600 smartphones. I was raised with the belief that a person shouldn't have children until you can afford to have them...and if you have them anyways, you do without luxuries like cell phones and eating out until you can afford those things.
I've heard and read it said that women set the tone both in a family and in a nation. Maybe I just notice it more but it seems to me that women, on average, have become just as slovenly as men have. There are always exceptions, thankfully, but a day or two growth of beard - or even a week - is not nearly as off-putting to me on an otherwise kempt man as a woman's obviously unwashed long hair pulled back in a ponytail...and usually kept exactly like that. Not being sexist, just making an observation.
