2 weeks Ago
First it was Donald Trump Jr. and brother Eric. Then Vice President JD Vance.
And now William Cogswell, Charleston’s own mayor. What is it about these Republican men of a certain age and their need to grow beards? Beards had already become ubiquitous — everywhere except in politics. That is, until recently.
We haven’t had a president with facial hair since the early 20th century when William Taft, whose impressive mustache matched his impressive girth, was in the White House. Beards were seen as unprofessional and unhygienic. Men with beards were deemed less trustworthy.
Steve Bailey Now, in the Age of Trump, DEI is out, and masculinity is in. (Trust is not.) And so are the Beard Bros.
“Whenever masculinity is redefined, facial hairstyles change to suit,” Christopher Oldstone-Moore writes in “Of Beards and Men,” an exhaustive 345-page history of men and beards and how they shaped the world for better or worse. Donald Trump himself is famously averse to facial hair, reportedly deep-sixing more than one Cabinet appointment in his first administration because of it. That didn’t stop the Trump progeny from sprouting beards during his first term.
Vance grew his three years ago when he was running for an Ohio Senate seat. Some pundits predicted Trump might reject JD as V.P.
because of the beard. Instead, the Trump campaign framed him as "the rugged everyman — 'a young Abraham Lincoln,'" as Politico wrote at the time. Last year, Charleston got its first Republican mayor since 1877, and now it has its first bearded mayor in maybe 140 years.
Mind you, 17 months ago Charleston voters elected a clean-shaven William Cogswell. The standard campaign portrait was of a youngish Cogswell, blue blazer, red-stripped tie, on his South of Broad front porch. Not a whisker on that smiling face.
Then suddenly this January, a year after taking office, the mayor had a full salt-and-pepper beard. I’ve used all my skills as an investigative journalist to sleuth this out: I watched the YouTube video of the City Council meetings. In December he had no beard; by early January he did.
An impressive accomplishment, indeed. So why, at 50, did Cogswell decide to grow a beard? Historically, beards have been associated with masculinity and power. They’re seen as a sign of wisdom and maturity, assets in any leader.
As usual, the mayor isn’t saying. He rarely speaks to the press, certainly not to me. When he was a developer not so long ago, we used to have coffee at the Cigar Factory, chat on the phone.
That all ended after he wrote a column in the Charleston Mercury during the campaign about crime and how his car was stolen in front of his house. He forgot to note that he (or his wife) left the keys in the car, and when I did in my own column , that was the end of our coffees. Might a thick beard protect our thin-skinned mayor? Even in this era of AI, there’s no database to definitively sort Charleston mayors — beards, no beards.
But my research turned up precious few beards among the city’s 62 mayors and "intendants" since Charleston was incorporated in 1783. (We had intendants until 1836. And the city has had zero female mayors, bearded or not — something we might want to remedy sometime soon.
) The last bearded mayor I could find was William Ashmead Courtenay, who served 1879-87. A Democrat with a neat mustache and goatee, Courtney was known as tight-fisted with the people’s money, helped build Colonial Lake and William Enston Homes on King Street and established the city’s first professional fire department. There have been a handful of others: William Porcher Miles (1855-57) and Johann Andreas Wagener (1871-73).
Two military mayors appointed to oversee defeated Charleston after the Civil War had full beards. One served 19 days. The other, George Washington Clark, was arrested and decided, wisely, to leave town nine months after taking office.
I may have missed a beard or two. And times have changed, of course. Two current city councilmen, Karl Brady and Stephen Bowden, also have beards.
There are a few pencil mustaches on the council. So if the beard barrier in politics has finally fallen, could tattoos be far behind? Trump’s controversial defense secretary is covered in tattoos. Imagine Nancy Mace with a MAGA tat? Cogswell, however, might note that few of Charleston’s bearded mayors lasted long.
Joe Riley in a beard? Never. Steve Bailey is a regular contributor to The Post and Courier Opinion section. He can be reached at sjbailey1060@yahoo.
com ..
