Let’s all take a moment to appreciate the fact that Abraham Lincoln grew that iconic beard of his because a little girl asked him to in a letter.
“I have got 4 brothers and part of them will vote for you any way,” reads part of 11-year-old Grace Bedell’s note to the Republican presidential candidate, “and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President.”
Read the rest of their correspondence here, and then convince any adolescent girls in your life to start tweeting their facial-hair preferences at Obama, for tradition’s sake.
