The First Hint of a Beard, by Samuel G. Alschuler, Chicago, November 25, 1860

Less than three weeks after winning the election, the president-elect sat for Samuel G. Alschuler in Chicago, and the camera caught the first stubble of the famous beard. A month earlier, 11-year-old Grace Bedell of Westfield, New York, had written urging him to grow whiskers because his face was so thin; Lincoln replied without promising anything. This is the first photograph to show the change, a half-grown chin beard that looks nothing like the full one of the presidency.