Did George Washington Really Do All That?

Did George Washington really chop down a cherry tree? Why is that such a classic story? And why did he always wear a wig? Wait, did he? Were his teeth really wooden?!? How much of what you know about George Washington is true?

Sources

Transcript

Tzeela: Hi I'm Tzeela and I'm 16

Rina: Hi I'm Rina and I'm 14

Dalia: Hey, I'm Dalia and I'm 10

Together: And this is Things You Thought You Knew About History!

Tzeela: Where we tell you the real story behind historical misconceptions.

Rina: Ahhh George Washington

Tzeela: Father of the Country

Dalia: Military Hero

Rina: Accomplished General

Tzeela: Member of the Continental Congress

Dalia: Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution

Rina: First President of the United States

Tzeela: Only President Elected Unanimously (meaning everyone who voted chose him)

Dalia: And the Little Boy who wouldn’t lie to his father about chopping down a cherry tree

Tzeela: Ummm, what?

Dalia: Yeah, He got a hatchet, a little ax, when he was six and couldn’t resist using it on his father’s cherry tree. When his father saw the tree, he asked young George what happened. George answered, “I cannot tell a lie, Pa. You know I can’t tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.” His father then told him that the truth that he told was worth one thousand trees.

Rina: You know that never really happened right?

Dalia: Really?

Tzeela: It was made up by Mason Locke Weems, aka Parson Weems, an early American minister, author, and bookseller. He wrote a biography of George Washington, The Life of Washington, in 1800 soon after Washington died.

Rina: Throughout the book, Weems tried to show that President Washington’s success was because of his great character. He wanted to give American children someone to look up to. Also, he was a businessman and tried to give the readers what they wanted, great stories about the great man.

Dalia: The legend about the cherry tree first appeared in the fifth edition of the book and Weems claimed a friend of George Washington’s family told it to him. He said the lady wished to remain anonymous but she may have never existed to begin with.

Tzeela: Everyone loved the story but I don’t know if we’d still tell it today if that was the end of it. It wasn't. William Holmes McGuffey, a Presbyterian minister, and a college professor included the story in one of his famous school readers. His readers were first printed in 1836 and used in schools across the country for almost one hundred years. The cherry tree story was in McGuffey’s Eclectic Second Reader to teach children lessons while practicing reading.

Rina: While children were learning the story in school someone else was also spreading it- in a much weirder way. P.T. Barnum, who would later go on to form the first circus, purchased an enslaved person named Joice Heth in 1835

Dalia: He advertised that she was George Washington’s nurse and people came from everywhere to hear her speak about young Washington. One popular story she told was about the cherry tree! The only problem was that he said she was born in 1674, making her 161 years old at the time!

Tzeela: How in the world did people believe that!?!?!

Rina: Well she did look really really old though she was probably only 80.

Dalia: and she told stories they knew and believed, like the cherry tree story

Tzeela: Also the people then were living through the conflict before the civil war. They wanted something that reminded them of the patriotism of George Washington's time. They were willing to believe it since it was what they wanted to hear.

Dalia: How ironic. Teaching about the value of truth with a made-up story.

Rina: Yeah. But the story did inspire some people. One was Abraham Lincoln. On his way to Washington D.C. as a newly elected president, he spoke to the NJ senate. He listed a few books that had taught him important lessons and then said that it was Life of Washington that inspired him and showed him that Washington was special and so was what he stood for.

Rina: What are other misconceptions about President Washington?

Tzeela: In all the pictures we see, George Washington has thick flowy white hair.

Rina: While people often think this is a wig IT ISN'T

Dalia: Yeah that was his real hair, powdered and styled by servants of course. Powdering was a very common way to do hair back then.

Tzeela: Well what is powdering?

Rina: People would put hair powders which were available in different colors on their hair or wigs. First they would use hair products called pomade or pomatum because these were greasy which helped more powder strict to a person's hair.

Dalia: They wore special outfits and often covered their faces because powder could get everywhere. Some houses even built small separate rooms just for powdering to limit the mess.

(It's the old-fashioned glitter. Ha ha!)

Tzeela: Men usually wore white or grey and women usually wore off-white although in England that popular color for women was different

Dalia: Fun fact: under all that powdering he was a red-head

Rina: How many more things could we possibly have gotten wrong about George Washington?

Tzeela: Well, for one he didn't have wooden teeth

Dalia: He did have full dentures by age 57 because his poor dental health made him lose all his teeth. But the dentures weren’t made of wood. Dentists didn’t make wooden dentures at that time.

Rina: Washinton’s dentures were made of human teeth, filed animal teeth, ivory, and various metals. Where the human teeth came from is confusing.

Tzeela: Some may have been from the dentists. Back then, dentists kept teeth for when patients needed. Extremely poor people sometimes sold their teeth to dentists to make some money

Dalia: some may have been his that had been pulled out earlier

Rina: It’s recorded in George Washington’s financial record and the record of the plantation manager, that he purchased 9 teeth from enslaved people in 1784. But even though he paid the enslaved people for their teeth they may not have had a choice.

These teeth may have been purchased for Washington’s dentures but it’s more likely that they were for the dentist who was probably Dr. Jean Pierre Le Mayeur. If they were Washington’s they were in a partial denture because at that point he had some teeth left.

Dalia: Why did people think they were wood?

Tzeela: We don’t really know. Could be because the dentures were stained over time and that gave them a dark, grained, wood-like appearance.

Rina: It could be in part because his dentures were painful so people thought they weren’t teeth.

Dalia: there’s still a lot we don’t know about George Washingtons teeth, dental health, and dentures because not everything survived or was well recorded.

Tzeela: That's a ton of myths I’m sure we’ve run out

Rina: There's actually a few more but...

Tzeela: Now it is time for

Rina: TRIVIA

Dalia: So here's how it will work we’ll ask a question and then count down from ten so you have time to answer,

Tzeela: if you need more time feel free to pause

Rina: The trivia will cover random US presidents facts so I hope you know YOUR U.S. PRESIDENTS


Dalia: Who was a peanut farmer before they became president?

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Dalia: Jimmy Carter


Tzeela: Which president played five instruments?

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Tzeela: Richard Nickson


Bonus Questions - what were the instruments he played?

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Tzeela: Piano, viollin, clarinet, saxophone, and accordion



Rina: Who was the 31st president?

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Rina: Herbert Hoover


Dalia: Who was the first president born after the American revolution?

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Dalia: Martin Van Buren


Tzeela: Thanks for listening!

Dalia: We hope you enjoyed!

Rina: Be sure to follow the podcast if you haven’t already!

Dalia: Talk to you next month, (the episode is already set to automatically upload.)

Tzeela: Have a great night,day, evening,morning or afternoon and learn some history!!!!!