Category: McClafferty Carla Killough

George Washington’s Hair

4/15/2022

Carla Killough McClafferty
illuminating lives from the past, impacting lives in the present

When you hear the name George Washington, what comes to mind? If you are like most people, you think about his image on the one dollar bill. And it’s no wonder since 9 billion dollar bills are in circulation at all times. This image is so familiar we sometimes forget that Washington wasn’t always a 64-year-old man. He certainly wasn’t born with white hair and dentures!

    What did George Washington look like when he was a young man?   The leadership of Mount Vernon, Washington’s home, decided to find out. They gathered a group of experts to do a forensic study of George Washington. Their goal was to create three wax figures that show him at the ages of 19, 45 and 57 years old.

    To make sure the wax figures would look like the real George Washington, the hair they used must be the right color. The experts didn’t have to guess what color his hair was. They looked at George Washington’s real hair. Many locks of his hair still exist today. Why? Because in the 18th century it was common to keep small locks of hair that belonged to someone you loved or admired. (Sometimes even strangers would ask Washington for a lock of his hair to keep as a token of their respect for him.)

    Can you guess what color Washington’s hair was when he was 19 years old? His natural hair was reddish brown (it wasn’t really red, and it wasn’t really brown—it was in between). Sometimes this color is described as “chestnut.”

    Once the experts knew Washington’s hair color, they ordered human hair from a “hair merchant” in London, England. (Real people sell their hair to them.)   The cost was about $300.00 for the hair used on the figure of Washington at 19.    Sue Day, an artist, used a needle-like tool to place one human hair at a time directly into the wax head. She consulted portraits of Washington to make sure the shape of his hairline was right.

    When the wax figure of young George Washington was finished, his long chestnut hair was pulled back into a queue (we would call it a ponytail). A large black silk bow was placed in his hair.

    Today visitors to Mount Vernon can see what George Washington really looked like at the age of 19.   And he looks great.

Washington’s long chestnut hair is seen here. Sue Day puts the finishing touches of paint on his wax face.

Artist Sue Day pushes one hair at a time into the wax to form the hairline of George Washington as he would have looked at 19 years of age.

Famous 1797 Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington.

Carla McClafferty wrote a book on the subject of this Nonfiction Minute. For more information on THE MANY FACES OF GEORGE WASHINGTON: REMAKING A PRESIDENTIAL ICON (Carolrhoda, 2011) and for access to lesson plans and enrichment materials based on the award-winning book, click here.
Carla Killough McClafferty is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more.

MLA 8 Citation
McClafferty, Carla Killlough. "George Washington's Hair." Nonfiction Minute, iNK
Think Tank, 22 Feb. 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/
george-washingtons-hair.

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Buried Lives

2/17/2022

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Carla Killough McClafferty
Illuminating lives from the past,
impacting lives in the present

The shady spot overlooking the river didn’t look like a cemetery. Nothing marked it as a burial ground - no flowers, no grave markers, not even a sign. Yet buried there lay the remains of enslaved people of Mount Vernon, George Washington’s estate.

Even knowledge of the cemetery’s location might have been lost to time if The Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association hadn’t bought Mount Vernon in 1858. Just a few years later, the Civil War brought an end to slavery. At last, men, women and children would no longer be enslaved - or buried - at Mount Vernon.

Years passed and the memory of who was buried there and where they were buried faded away. By 1929, The Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association realized that even the location of the cemetery might soon be forgotten. They installed a marker to identify the site of the cemetery. More years passed. Weeds and underbrush grew over the unmarked graves-and the 1929 marker.

At last in 1982 a memorial was installed to honor the people who were enslaved at Mount Vernon. For the first time the public had a place to pay their respects to those buried there. The gray granite column in the center of the memorial reads:

Then in 2014, archeologists at Mount Vernon began an exciting new project. A multi-year archaeological dig that would answer three questions:

Where are the cemetery boundaries?
How many people are buried there?
How are the burials arranged within the cemetery?

To accomplish the dig, archeologists remove six to eight inches of soil - only enough to determine if a grave is present. No human remains will ever be disturbed in the process. So far, more than 70 graves have been located – some of them graves of children.

Like other slave owning families, the Washingtons did not keep birth, death or burial records of the people they enslaved. Today, it is impossible to know the identities of the individuals who lie in each grave. But this archaeological dig will at least allow us to know, and honor, the location of their final resting places.

The individuals buried there may remain nameless, but they are not forgotten.

The marker places by The Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association in 1929 is still in the cemetery today.

The memorial monument placed here in 1982 honors the enslaved people buried in the cemetery whose graves are unmarked.

Flowers adorn the graves of enslaved men, women and children that were uncovered by the archaeologists during the dig.

This yellowish oval is a grave shaft. It was revealed after removing about eight inches of the soil above it.

Do you want to find out how an archaeological dig works? In Buried Lives: The Enslaved People of George Washington’s Mount Vernon you will discover how they uncovered graves in the cemetery at Mount Vernon-and about six, specific real life enslaved people who served the Washington family. You can read Vicki Cobb's review here. It won the National CDA Young Reader Book Award in 2020.

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The Near-Death Experience of Football

2/10/2022

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Carla Killough McClafferty
illuminating lives from the past, impacting lives in the present

Every fall, the smell of popcorn and hot dogs fills the air as fans make their way into stadiums to cheer for the home team. Football is such a big part of our world that it is hard to imagine life in America without the sport.

    But in 1905, football was nearly cancelled—forever. By the end of the year, nineteen boys had died as a result of playing football. Because of these deaths and the many injuries that occurred during the season, Columbia University in New York City decided they would no longer have a football team. Other colleges considered banning their football teams too.

     At the time, Teddy Roosevelt was President of the United States. He was a football fan and believed young Americans should live a “strenuous life” filled with hard work and physical activity. President Roosevelt did not want America to lose football, but he also understood the game needed to be less brutal that it was. So he called a meeting between the coaches of Harvard, Yale and Princeton on October 9, 1905. The coaches joined Roosevelt at the White House to discuss how to make football safer.

    As the season drew to a close, the future of football was still in question. In December Walter Camp, the man who invented American football, led a group called the Intercollegiate Rules Committee to make rule changes. As part of the changes, the Committee wanted officials to enforce rules against kneeing, kicking and punching on the field. For the first time football would include a forward pass. They also changed the distance it would take for a first down—it had been five yards, but the new rules changed it to ten yards.

    The rule changes of 1905 are still part of football today, and so is Walter Camp’s Committee. Today it is known as the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) which still governs the rules of college football.

This cartoon titled “Next! A President Who ‘Does’ Things.” depicts President Theodore Roosevelt and includes an injured football player on the right side. Image: Library of Congress

Did you know that football was almost banned in 1905 because nineteen players were dead and countless others injures? Carla McClafferty has written a book that balances the love of America’s most popular spectator sport with a hard look at its costs for players. This is a must read for players and coaches.
Carla McClafferty is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more.

MLA 8 Citation
McClafferty, Carla Killough. "The Near-Death Experience of Football."
     Nonfiction Minute`, iNK Think Tank, 1 Feb. 2018,
     www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/
     the-near-death-experience-of-football.

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The Taste of Death

12/10/2021

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Carla Killough McClafferty
Illuminating lives from the past,
impacting lives in the present

Radium is a radioactive element that glows. In the early decades of the twentieth century, companies such as the U.S. Radium Corporation made money from this unusual characteristic. They manufactured watches that were painted with radium paint that allowed users to tell time in the dark.

The employees hired to paint the tiny numbers and hands of watch faces were mostly young immigrant women. It was a good job with better than average pay. Also, it was exciting to work with the world-famous radium. Just for fun sometimes the girls would use radium paint on their teeth or fingernails to show their boyfriends how they glowed in the dark.   After all, the company told the girls that radium was harmless.

Each girl painted the faces of 250 to 300 watch dials in a typical workday. To do this delicate work it took a steady hand and a pointed paint brush. Throughout the day, in order to keep a sharp point on their brushes, the girls would put the tip between their lips then dip it into the radium paint.

In 1921 Amelia Maggia, one of the dial painters, had a swollen cheek and terrible toothache. She had the tooth pulled but her gums would not heal. Infection set in and destroyed her jawbone. She died the next year from her mysterious condition. Then another young woman developed the same symptoms. Then another. Then another. Each of the girls had one thing in common: they were radium dial painters.   Ultimately they learned that every time they put their brushes to their mouths their bodies absorbed radium, and that radiation was harmful to people.

In 1928, five “radium girls” sued U.S. Radium Corporation. By the time the case went to trial each woman was dying from radium poisoning. One of the girls, Grace Fryer, had so much radium in her system that when she blew her nose, the handkerchief glowed in the dark.   The company decided to settle the case and agreed to pay their medical bills, and give them each a one-time lump sum of $10,000, plus $600 per year for the rest of their lives—which weren't very long. Sadly, it took the deaths of the “radium girls” and many others to understand the dangers of radium.

Radium girls painting watch dials at a U.S. Radium Corporation factory, 1922. Wikimedia Commons

A magazine ad from 1921 advertising radium paint called “Undark” from Radium Luminous Material Corporation that changed its name to U.S. Radium Corporation. Wikimedia Commons

Carla Killough McClafferty writes about radium and the amazing scientist who discovered it in Something Out of Nothing: Marie Curie and Radium. This book focuses on the life of the most famous female scientist of all time. In it you will learn how Marie Curie overcame poverty and prejudice to achieve her dreams. Also included are the fascinating details of the “radium girls” and how companies added radium to all sorts of products including water, toothpaste, bath salts and medicine.

Carla Killough McClafferty is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more.

MLA 8 Citation
McClafferty, Carla Killough. "The Taste of Death." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 19 Dec. 2017, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/ The-Taste-of-Death. Accessed 19 Dec. 2017.

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The Unbreakable Secret Code: Kryptos

11/17/2021

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Carla Killough McClafferty
Illuminating lives from the past,
impacting lives in the present

Kryptos stands in the shadow of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters in Langley, Virginia−waiting to be revealed. No, Kryptos is not a foreign spy. It is a mysterious sculpture. The large, curved copper monument is covered with 1800 cut-out letters that together form four separate coded messages.

The sculpture was created by artist Jim Sanborn who was chosen to create it for the grounds of the CIA. When Sanborn began the work, he was not an expert in codes. He learned about writing codes and breaking codes from Ed Scheidt of the CIA.

Kryptos stood there, like a silent challenge, after it was installed in 1990. Two years later men from the National Security Agency (NSA) set out to crack the code and they did solve the first three messages. Then in 1998 one man at the CIA also solved the first three. But neither agency publicly announced they had done it. Nine years after Kryptos was unveiled, Jim Gillogly was the first person who did not work for a government agency who solved the first three of four messages. These three messages are a poetic phrase, coordinates for a location on the grounds of the CIA, and an account of the opening of King Tut’s tomb.

The fourth message is the shortest and only has 97 letters. For more than twenty years people all over the world have tried to figure it out. Sanborn, the creator of Kryptos, has grown impatient that the last section of Kryptos has not been solved. In 2010 he released a clue and revealed that one six word section of letters were code for the word “BERLIN.” Still no one could solve it. In November 2014, Sanborn announced another clue, a five word section of letters were code for the word “CLOCK.”

Still the fourth message on the Kryptos code has not been broken. It remains one of the world’s most famous unsolved mysteries.

Would you like to try to crack the fourth code of Kryptos? Here it is:

OBKR

UOXOGHULBSOLIFBBWFLRVQQPRNGKSSO

TWTQSJQSSEKZZWATJKLUDIAWINFBNYP

VTTMZFPKWGDKZXTJCDIGKUHUAUEKCAR

This image of the CIA's Kryptos sculpture is provided by the sculptor, Jim Sanborn, via Wikimedia Commons.

Carla Killough McClafferty writes about international intrigue in her book In Defiance of Hitler: The Secret Mission of Varian Fry. In this book you will learn the true story of how one American man traveled to France during World War II with the intention of rescuing refugees from the Nazis. Fry lived a double life as he secretly smuggled people out of Europe. Ultimately Varian Fry’s efforts saved the lives of more than 2000 people.

Carla McClafferty is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more.

MLA 8 Citation
McClafferty, Carla Killough. "The Unbreakable Secret Code: Kryptos." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 26 Oct. 2017. Accessed 21 Oct. 2017

2 Comments

George Washington’s Hair

Buried Lives

The Near-Death Experience of Football

The Taste of Death

The Unbreakable Secret Code: Kryptos

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