George Washington Wired

The Mount Vernon Education Dept. knows how important teaching with primary documents is to teachers- after all, what better source is there than the original. For this reason, we provide a link on our website to the digital edition of the Papers of George Washington, as well as a number of lesson plans that use primary documents. We have also decided to focus our next distance learning program on these important teaching tools, which will air across the nation on Jan. 8, 2009 from 4:00-4:45 pm. The program, Primarily George, will feature educators from Mount Vernon, the National Archives, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and the Papers of George Washington. These educators will highlight online primary source documents, in their respective collections, that can be used to teach students about various aspects of George Washington and the founding and also give brief overviews of the online collections that can be used to access the sources. As always, if you miss the program when it airs, educators can request a free DVD of the program from the Fairfax Network.

Created by a forensic anthropologist and a team of interdisciplinary experts, the forensic figures of George Washington in Mount Vernon’s new Donald W. Reynolds Education Center, strive to show the real George Washington. There are three figures of George Washington, ages 19, 45, and 57: Washington as a young surveyor, as a General in the midst of the Revolution, and, Washington as he is taking the oath of office to become the first President of the United States. And just like the real George Washington, they, too, require a little grooming (bet you weren’t expecting that!).
Last month, Steven Horak, a theatrical wig maker with the Metropolitan Opera, and Susan Day, a studio artist formerly from Madame Tussauds, came to the Education Center for the yearly maintenance of the three Georges. The heads and hands of the figures are made of beeswax and are removed from the figures, washed, and meticulously repainted. Real human hair is used for the wigs and the thousands of individual hairs which are inserted into the beeswax for hair around the face, eyebrows, eyelashes, stubble and hands. This is also a good opportunity for Diana Cordray, EC Manager, to adjust and clean the costumes. Once the figures are reassembled, visitors are none the wiser that the Georges have just had a makeover!

Photos by Cal McWhirter

That is the title of a Washington Post front page article on Sunday, November 2, 1930 of an interview they conducted with Eleanor Washington Howard. Eleanor was the last person to be born at Mount Vernon, in George Washington’s former bedroom nonetheless, and grew up running around the gardens of Martha Washington. My favorite line in the article is, “Strange to say, the child born there that day has grown up to possess the strongest facial likeness to George Washington of any of his living kinsmen or kinswomen.”

The article is fascinating for a number of reasons: first, the fact that the Washington Post would run a front page article about an interview with a descendant of the Washingtons, 131 years after the death of George Washington. Secondly, the article explains how the Washington descendents despaired at being eaten out of house and home by the thousands of “pilgrims” that traveled to Mount Vernon and in true Southern hospitality were sumptuously housed and fed by the Washington family. It was this status as the nation’s first tourist attraction that led to Mount Vernon being obtained by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association in order to preserve the estate. Thirdly, much of the article is a list of Washington descendants in Book of Genesis style (so and so begat…). The article clearly shows how loved and admired George Washington, as well as every member of his family, was to his country over a century after his death. Do you think the Kennedy family will still be idolized in the year 2094? Leave a comment and let us know!

Thank you, Sue Keeler, for passing along this fascinating piece of history!

The Phoebe Apperson Hearst Learning Center is a place for teachers to research 18th century American History, review curriculum kits, use the scholarly edition of the Papers of George Washington, and get custom packets of teaching resources to take back to their own classrooms. Teachers love to drop by the Learning Center while here on a field trip, but for those of you not taking Mount Vernon field trips this year we have now posted a complete bibliography of the resources in the Learning Center so that you can review our materials before you make the trip to the Learning Center.

Teachers may visit the Teacher Learning Center free of charge by announcing themselves at the desk of the Education Center. Please call 703-799-8602 with any questions.

Have you visited the Learning Center? Leave a comment and let us know what you think!