BEARD encyclopedia topics

beard, hair on the lower portion of the face. The term mustache refers to hair worn above the upper lip. Attitudes toward facial hair have varied in different cultures. In ancient Egypt, as well as Turkey and India, the beard was regarded as a sign of dignity and wisdom. Beards continued into the Greek civilization until the 4th cent. B.C., when Alexander the Great ordered his soldiers shaved. The Romans, however, actually introduced the practice of regular shaving. The belief that the beard denotes wisdom was widespread in ancient China, and the cult of the beard has been dominant in Middle Eastern cultures from ancient times to the recent past. As a symbol of virility and status, the beard has often acquired religious significance. Muhammad enjoined his followers to grow beards; the Sikhs of India are not permitted to remove a single hair from their bodies; and the patriarchs of the tribes of Israel were bearded. Hindus, on the other hand, have traditionally been clean-shaven. Prior to the 7th cent., most Anglo-Saxons wore beards, but with the spread of Christianity, beards were discouraged. However, since that time beards of all sizes and shapes have appeared and disappeared with the cycles of fashion. The guardsman's mustache of the 18th and early 19th cent. was the sign of an army man, and after 1830 the beard became the emblem of the French radicals. In the 20th cent. beards and mustaches were generally out of fashion until the 1960s when, together with long hair, they became popular with young people.

See R. Reynolds, Beards (1950).

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Beard, James

Beard, James, 1903-85, American cooking teacher, b. Portland Oregon. His interest in food was encouraged by his mother, who had been a hotel proprietor. He was a syndicated columnist, a frequent guest on television and radio, and an adviser to restaurateurs and food manufacturers. He briefly hosted his own television program, I Love to Cook (1946-47). In 1955, Beard established a cooking school in his Greenwich Village home, where he taught until he was 81. It is now The James Beard House, America's first culinary center and a showcase for chefs. His belief in the virtues of American cuisine helped create a gastronomic revolution in the United States. Beard wrote some two dozen cookbooks, including American Cooking (1972) and The Cook's Catalogue (1975).

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Beard, Daniel Carter

Beard, Daniel Carter, 1850-1941, American illustrator and naturalist, b. Cincinnati, Ohio, studied at the Art Students League, New York City. He illustrated many books (among them the first edition of Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court) and taught animal drawing. He became interested in work for boys, and his best-known book, The American Boys' Handy Book, was published in 1882. One of the founders (1910) of the Boy Scouts of America, he served for the remainder of his life as national scout commissioner. To boys all over the country he was known as Uncle Dan. Mt. Beard, adjoining Mt. McKinley, is named for him. In addition to many articles on woodcraft and nature study, Beard wrote Boy Pioneers and Sons of Daniel Boone (1909), American Boys' Book of Wild Animals (1921), and Wisdom of the Woods (1927).

See his autobiography, Hardly a Man Is Now Alive (1939).

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Beard, Charles Austin

Beard, Charles Austin, 1874-1948, American historian, b. near Knightstown, Ind. A year at Oxford as a graduate student gave him an interest in English local government, and after further study at Cornell and Columbia universities he wrote, for his doctoral dissertation at Columbia, The Office of Justice of the Peace in England (1904, repr. 1962). While teaching (1904-17) history and politics at Columbia, he joined James Harvey Robinson in promoting the teaching of history that would encompass all aspects of civilization, including economics, politics, the intellectual life, and culture. Together they wrote The Development of Modern Europe (1907) and compiled an accompanying book of readings.

Beard was especially concerned with the relationship of economic interests and politics. His study of the conservative economic interests of the men at the Federal Constitutional Convention, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution (1913), caused much stir; he also wrote Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy (1915, repr. 1965) and The Economic Basis of Politics (1922). His interest in city government led to American City Government (1912) as well as the long-standard American Government and Politics (1910). After resigning from Columbia in World War I, he helped to found the New School for Social Research (now New School Univ.), was director (1917-22) of the Training School for Public Service in New York City, and was an adviser on administration in Tokyo after the disastrous Japanese earthquake of 1923. Beard wrote A Charter for the Social Sciences in the Schools (1932), which had an enormous influence on the teaching of history.

Beard became widely known to the general reading public through The Rise of American Civilization (2 vol., 1927, repr. 1933) and its sequels (Vol. III and Vol. IV), America in Midpassage (1939), and The American Spirit (1943), all written in collaboration with his wife, Mary Ritter Beard, 1876-1958. This panoramic work is an example of the broad historical view that Beard championed; the great store of fact is laid open with easy and graceful literary style. With his wife he also later wrote a brief survey, The Beards' Basic History of the United States (1944, rev. ed. 1960).

Charles Beard, much criticized as a radical in his earlier years, was just as much criticized by the liberals in his later years for his violent opposition to Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, especially in the struggle over the Supreme Court and in foreign policy. Beard's last work was President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War, 1941 (1948, repr. 1968). Mary R. Beard, a historian in her own right, was particularly interested in feminism and the labor movement and wrote a number of works on the subjects, notably Women's Work in Municipalities (1915), A Short History of the American Labor Movement (1920), On Understanding Women (1931), and Woman as Force in History (1946).

See studies by B. C. Borning (1962) and R. Hofstadter (1968, repr. 1970).

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Aaron's-beard

Aaron's-beard, name sometimes applied to several plants usually characterized by some beardlike aspect, as the St.-John's-wort because of its many stamens and the Kenilworth ivy because of its threadlike runners. Aaron's-beard cactus is Opuntia leucotricha, a true cactus.

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Beard, Charles A(ustin)

(born Nov. 27, 1874, near Knightstown, Ind., U.S.—died Sept. 1, 1948, New Haven, Conn.) U.S. historian. Beard taught at Columbia University (1904–17) and cofounded New York's New School for Social Research (1919). He is best known for iconoclastic studies of the development of U.S. political institutions, emphasizing the dynamics of socioeconomic conflict and change and analyzing motivational factors in the founding of institutions. His works include An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913), claiming that the Constitution was formulated to serve the economic interests of the founders; The Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy (1915); and, with his wife, Mary R. Beard (1876–1958), The Rise of American Civilization (1927).

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