09 February 2009

Abraham Lincoln - punk hairstyle?


Someone who is more in tune with current fashion can perhaps offer me a better tag to describe the hair in this photo. Remarkably, it appears to be a real hairstyle of his (not a Photoshop image); the source is the Library of Congress collection, where this explanation is offered: "The short haircut was perhaps suggested by Lincoln's barber to facilitate the taking of his life mask by Clark Mills. Lincoln knew from experience how long hair could cling to plaster." "An 1865 stereograph long attributed to Mathew Brady was actually taken by Lewis Emory Walker, a government photographer, about February 1865 and published for him by the E. & H. T. Anthony Co., of New York." (Source: Ostendorf, p. 198-9)

Found at Kottke.

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