
The Great French Mustache Strike of 1907 - oblib
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/french-mustache-strike
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pjc50
The tremendous _Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds_ has
a section on "Influence of Politics and Religion on the Hair and Beard",
detailing the various times it's been banned/compulsory/taxed.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusion...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds)

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msla
It's also public domain and available at Project Gutenberg:

[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518)

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scott_s
Many military, police and service jobs in the US ban facial hair for men,
which has a discriminatory effect: [https://www.vox.com/the-
goods/2018/9/28/17916056/workplace-b...](https://www.vox.com/the-
goods/2018/9/28/17916056/workplace-beards-facial-hair-black-men-sikhs-publix-
chick-fil-a)

~~~
gaius
The military beard ban is about sealing a gas mask, it does have a real
purpose. Having said that, they do let SF grow beards.

~~~
Legogris
Can confirm. Same when I did service in Sweden. Reasonable mustaches were OK,
beards were not.

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kzrdude
What about trimming to a stubble, was that ok? Or does it have to be razor
blade shaven?

~~~
jacobush
A gas mask seal will not be great with significant stubble.

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rossdavidh
This is an interesting article and all, but I have to say that the picture of
a waiter with a tray and a bottle of wine in mid-fall was even more
interesting. Probably staged, but still an arresting shot.

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AceJohnny2
Looks like it was a race. The other waiters seem to be mid-run.

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atourgates
Hemingway talks about similar mustache-relates social strife occurring in the
1920s, in _A Movable Feast_, his memoirs of his life as a young man in Paris.

The conversation is set at the Cafe Lilas (which is still open today, though
mostly as a tourist trap), with Evan Shipman, a fellow American writer and
journalist.

    
    
      “He’s in trouble already,” Evan said.
      
      “How?”
      
      “They’re changing the management,” Evan said. “The new
       owners want to have a different clientele that will spend
      some money and they are going to put in an American bar.
      The waiters are going to be in white jackets, Hem, and
      they have been ordered to be ready to shave off their
      mustaches.”
      
      “They can’t do that to André and Jean.”
      
      “They shouldn’t be able to, but they will.”
      
      “Jean has had a mustache all his life. That’s a dragoon’s
      mustache. He served in a cavalry regiment.”
      
      “He’s going to have to cut it off.”
      
      I drank the last of the whisky.
      
      “Another whisky, Monsieur?” Jean asked. “A whisky, 
     Monsieur Shipman?” His heavy drooping mustache was a part
      of his thin, kind face, and the bald top of his head
      glistened under the strands of hair that were slicked
      across it.
      
      “Don’t do it, Jean,” I said. “Don’t take a chance.”
      
      “There is no chance,” he said, softly to us. “There is
      much confusion. Many are leaving. Entendu, Messieurs,” he
      said aloud. He went into the café and came out carrying
      the bottle of whisky, two large glasses, two ten-franc
      gold-rimmed saucers and a seltzer bottle.
      
      “No, Jean,” I said.
      
      He put the glasses down on the saucers and filled them
      almost to the brim with whisky and took the remains of the
      bottle back into the café. Evan and I squirted a little
      seltzer into the glasses.
      
      “It was a good thing Dostoyevsky didn’t know Jean,” Evan
      said. “He might have died of drink.”
      
      “What are we going to do with these?”
      
      “Drink them,” Evan said. “It’s a protest. It’s direct action.”
      
      On the following Monday when I went to the Lilas to work
      in the morning, André served me a bovril, which is a cup
      of beef extract and water. He was short and blond and
      where his stubby mustache had been, his lip was as bare as
      a priest’s. He was wearing a white American barman’s coat.

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yosefzeev
Back when people could be organized for a protest...

~~~
Legogris
It's still in the blood of the French. You don't have to be in Paris for long
to encounter mass protests.

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lucozade
Having had the pleasure of being served by many waiters in Paris, I assumed
that the 1907 strike hadn't ended yet.

