--- title: Paul Ryan Claims to Be First Bearded Speaker in a Century description: It seems the last bearded Speaker left office in 1925 canonical: https://time.com/4130028/paul-ryan-beard-speaker/ author: Sarah Begley article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-11-30T22:53:19.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T12:58:38.716Z article:section: Politics og:title: Paul Ryan Claims to Be First Bearded Speaker in a Century og:description: It seems the last bearded Speaker left office in 1925 og:url: https://time.com/4130028/paul-ryan-beard-speaker/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Paul Ryan Claims to Be First Bearded Speaker in a Century twitter:description: It seems the last bearded Speaker left office in 1925 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Paul Ryan Claims to Be First Bearded Speaker in a Century by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Nov 30, 2015 10:53 PM UTC by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Nov 30, 2015 10:53 PM UTC Paul Ryan has decided to give shaving a bit of a break, and his newfound facial hair might make him the first bearded Speaker of the House in a century, he claims. Ryan posted a photo of himself on [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/p/-uTcuPsQL3/) with his newfound stubble at the U.S. Capitol, writing, “Waiting on confirmation from the House Historian, but apparently, I’m the first Speaker to sport a beard in about 💯 years.” On Twitter, he re-shared the image and asked @USHouseHistory to weigh in on the last time a Speaker wore a beard. The historian responded that the last one was Frederick Huntington Gillett, who served as speaker from 1919 to ’25. > [](https://twitter.com/USHouseHistory/status/671440856189116416) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4130028/paul-ryan-beard-speaker/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4130028/paul-ryan-beard-speaker/"},"headline":"Paul Ryan Claims to Be First Bearded Speaker in a Century","datePublished":"2015-11-30T22:53:19.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T12:58:38.716Z","description":"It seems the last bearded Speaker left office in 1925","url":"https://time.com/4130028/paul-ryan-beard-speaker/","keywords":["Congress"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sarah Begley","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/congress/","name":"Congress"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4130028/paul-ryan-beard-speaker/","name":"Paul Ryan Claims to Be First Bearded Speaker in a Century"}}]}] ```