How is your 'tache hanging? As Movember [1] is drawing to a close, this might be a good time to examine the tenuous, yet undeniable and intriguing overlap between cartography and facial hair.   

Exhibit A: take a look at any picture of any great cartographer. What do you see? Beards and moustaches. Ptolemy? Check. Mercator? Check. Blaeu? Check. Arno Peters? No beard, no 'tache. Check.

Exhibit B: this literal overlap between cartography and follicular outgrowth, as demonstrated by the astronomer Frank K. Edmondson (1912-2008). Edmondson created the Indiana Asteroid Program, was treasurer of the American Astronomical Society and president of the Minor Planet Commission of the International Astronomical Union (1970-1973). More importantly in this context, he provided the inspiration for the Beard Raisers Club at Kirkwood Observatory (University of Indiana).

Exhibit C: a map of the US showing adjectively (and subjectively) which manly character traits may be enhanced by sporting a beard. Those traits relate to their location on the map. New Yorkers will look more Rip Van Winklely with a facial add-on of hair. Georgians will appear more gentlemanly. Utahns will seem more Mormonly. The map is an extrusion of The Beardly, a blog best described as promoting 'Beard Pride'. Some slogans, to give you a feel:  

• A man doesn't grow a beard. A beard grows a man.
• A fool and his follicles are soon parted.
• Real men grow their own scarf.

A few of the dictums listed on the website point to the intense rivalry that marks the world of facial hair, the eternal arguments for and against beards and moustaches, the Montagues and Capulets of this particular subculture. If you're a real beardie - growing everything between the nose and the Adam's apple, preferably to prophet-length - you'll look down on anyone who does anything less. Sideburns, in the words of The Beardly, are two sad tombstones to what might have been. Inversely, if you're an aficionado of the goatee, a proud owner of a handlebar moustache, or passionate about your mutton chops, you'll consider these full-on beard-growers to be latter-day Rasputins, insincere and unstable beirdos. 

It is sad to see so much infighting among the non-shaven, especially as to the clean-shaven, they're all the same: not to be trusted. 

A regular appendage of US presidents of the latter half of the 19th century, facial hair has since fallen out of favour. The last American president to sport a full beard was Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893), the last one with a moustache was William H. Taft (1909-1913) [2]. Either option now casts a pall of suspicion over any prospective presidential candidate. Could you imagine anyone seriously contending with a goatee, a fu manchu, or even a soul patch?