My history professor told his class that in America, it wasn’t fashionable to be clean shaven until America got into World War I.
He says that the reason for this is that it is very difficult to wear a gas mask correctly if you have a beard or moustache(the mask won’t seal properly), and that men in the military were thus forced to become clean shaven. And apparently this caught on back home too due to people looking up to and admiring the soldiers. And thus it became fashionable to be clean shaven.
Although I can’t answer your specific question, I know it has happened before. Evidently the Roman soldiers cut their hair short to avoid it being grabbed by enemies in battle. The trend caught on when the Romans conquered the known world, and this is (according to a college Roman History professor) the reason why men keep short hair to this day.
Is he saying that being clean-shaven originated during WWI? Or simply that it came back in style at that time?
Go look at any book or website devoted to the 19th century (or the 18th century). Beards have come and gone throughout. Look at Civil War photos and you’ll see lots of clean-shaven men. The same with the Spanish-American War. In WWI, Woodrow Wilson was rather too old to serve, yet I’ve never seen a photo of him with a beard or moustache. McKinley was clean-shaven in the 1890s.
Note that during the American War for Independence, paintings of the time indicate that the men were all clean-shaven–no beards or moustaches–while the use of gas or gas masks was even more rare. In fact, among some groups, facial hair never really caught on: Abraham Lincoln was the first president to have a beard (although a couple of his predecessors had muttonchop sideburns).
It is possible that the gas masks prompted more shaving during the 1920s. It is also possible that the “youth culture” of the 1920s (which histories usually focus on the image of women while ignoring men) may have also prompted younger men to shave to look more like teens.
I have heard similar claims to that of your teacher, but I have not seen them documented.
First time I have ever heard of gas masks. The Marines I knew and history books I read always said it was due to lice and other vermen that multiply and spread very quickly in the low sanitary conditions that exist when tens of thousands of men live with few sanitary conveniences in close quarters. The easiest way to avoid problems was shaving. However I have never heard of soldiers shaving their pubic hair for this reason. (Please correct me if I am wrong, but I presumed Arab women shaved their pubic hair for this reason since it is considered fashionable for them to be clean shaven and I have never heard of molesting young women being fashionable in any way among Arabs.)
Beards go in and out of fashion, and people try to find explanations for it after the fact. Clean-shaven soldiers often cite sanitation as the reason.
On the other hand, after the Crimean War, a generation of men came back to Britain wearing full beards (supposedly, supply shortages made shaving impractical) and beards suddenly became acceptable in Victorian society.
Stuck away in a desk drawer somewhere I have a small silver-colored metal case I used to use to store paper clips. On the lid is an eagle. To one side is a crossed rifles emblem to represent the U.S. Army and on the other side is an anchor emblem for the U.S. Navy.
I was given this when I was a boy by my father. He had gotten it from his uncle, who was in the infantry in World War I. The Gillette Razor company gave out a tremendous number of these free to servicemen during the war. Their effort may not have helped make shaving more widespread among American men, but it did help establish the use of safety razors as the preferred method.
Humorist H. Allen Smith wrote that one of his older relatives (perhaps it was his father) was so rugged that he thought “real men” never used safety razors or wore wrist watches. Wrist watches for men are another fashion which grew out of the war.
As for wristwatches, slipster, I’ve heard that it was those dashing, brave and plucky aviation pioneers, who wore wristwatches because having your watch on a chain in your pocket was impractical.
