A rare portrait captures Abraham Lincoln during a pivotal summer month, captured on June 3, 1860 just as he was transforming from a regional politician into a figure of national destiny. Taken shortly after he secured the Republican nomination for the presidency, the photograph reveals a clean-shaven Lincoln before he grew his iconic beard. This specific image was widely distributed across the country on campaign buttons, posters, and print media, introducing his stark, expressive features to an electorate that knew very little about the lanky lawyer from Illinois.
A few months after this picture was widely circulated, an eleven-year-old girl named Grace Bedell wrote a letter to Lincoln, candidly telling him that his face was so thin that he would look much better if he grew whiskers, which would help convince reluctant voters. Lincoln took the young girl’s advice to heart, growing the historic beard before his inauguration, making this clean-shaven portrait a final glimpse of the raw, unpolished man right before he assumed the visual identity that would define his presidency through the Civil War.
