Protests. What a great way to express disapproval and raise public awareness about society’s most significant evils. For that matter, it’s a great way to waste a lot of time making a fuss about stuff that is rather silly, and if that interests you, then you’ll want to read this article about some of history’s silliest protests.

One of the most time-honored ways of protesting is to go on strike. Laborers have walked off the job to protest unfair wages, unsafe working conditions, to show solidarity for other workers, and to the right to wear facial hair.

Nope… you didn’t misread that last bit. Mustaches were such a big deal to one class of laborers that they all went on strike to preserve the right to have hair growing between the nose and upper lip. Welcome to the Great French Mustache Strike of 1907.

As the world moved into the twentieth century, it was a great time for those who could grow facial hair. Some guys, of course, are not blessed with that ability. Our mother charitably explained this is due to being a “late bloomer.” For anyone in that category, life must have been like one long prison sentence served in junior high school, where all the boys who have yet to sprout any whiskers get mocked mercilessly. You know… such as the time Alek Sikorski bragged about his five o’clock shadow while comparing a certain future blog writer’s physique to that of a naked mole rat.

Of course, that’s just a hypothetical, totally random example and has nothing to do with thirty years of psychotherapy bills or recurring issues with bedwetting.

Now, where were we? Oh yes… the early 1900s and the facial hair fad… Consider the big names of the day. Politicians, authors, and theatrical performers all seemed to share a fondness for bushy beards, extravagant mustaches, and muttonchop sideburns. It would seem even Great-Aunt Hildegarde joined in this cultural phenomenon, although it’s possible that the photograph we’re looking at is just out of focus.

One nation defied the love affair with hair: France. Of course it would have to be France. After all, this is the nation where it was 2013 before women no longer had to get permission to wear trousers and was still recording sword duels as recently as 1967. Sporting facial hair, however, was a big no-no, at least if you were a low-ranking member of the military or a waiter.

Why these two professions? The modern restaurant, as we know it, was born in Paris. The goal of the first restaurant owners was to recreate the atmosphere of dining at the home of a wealthy acquaintance. The experience was to be replete with fine food and luxurious atmosphere. Such homes have servants, of course, and who better to serve the food than the servants?

Since servants are basically at the same class level as military enlisted personnel, logic dictated they should be held to the same standards for personal grooming. That is why waiters were forbidden to wear facial hair. Otherwise, it might destroy the illusion that restaurant patrons were being waited on by servants.

Waiters were unhappy with this analogy, however. In their minds, they were more than mere servants. They viewed their profession as being a cut above that of your run-of-the-mill laborer. They wanted the right to show their status with whiskers if they felt so inclined.

They had other concerns as well. They wanted more compensation and better work conditions, but it was the mustache that came to symbolize their discontent. In April 1907, the waiters grew tired of waiting and went on strike. Within days, thousands of waiters walked off the job, throwing French restaurants into disarray.

One contemporary account blamed “big American tips” for the controversy. Others pointed the blame at French women who “are quite determined to starve with their children rather than see the whiskers of their husbands still fall under the razor,” according to the Mémorial de la Loire newspaper.

Public sentiment seemed to strongly favor the aggrieved waiters. Waiters who stayed on the job were scorned as scabs. The protests grew violent in several instances. A Los Angeles Times article from April 20 reported that police reacted so strongly to break up protests that they “expelled every smooth-shaven man including a dozen innocent Americans who had just arrived in town, ignorant of the strike, and who were bewildered by their hostile reception.”

Eager to throw a note of patriotism into the controversy, La Presse equated the movement to the Declaration of the Rights of Man, saying that facial hair allowed the waiters “to finally show that they are men, free men, who have no more kings, who have no masters and who can wear at their ease this symbol of the all-powerful male, the mustache.”

The voice of the aggrieved waiters was heard, and by early May they secured the right to wear mustaches. By a curious and disappointing twist of fate, they obtained the right to wear the symbol of the strike, but few of their more serious concerns were addressed. Issues of low pay and substandard working conditions persisted.

The waiters, however, appeared to be happy. At the very least, if they were displeased, their frowns were covered by their bushy badges of distinction.

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