This Issue:

Table of Contents

Cover Story

Cover Story - Spanish Version

Mini-Lesson

Comprehension Quiz

Teacher's Guide and Worksheets

A True Look at Washington

By Kathyrn Satterfield

Scientists are close to solving a 200-year-old mystery: What did George Washington really look like? In 2000, the staff at Washington's Mount Vernon estate, in Virginia, set out to breathe new life into the father of our country. They wanted to create models of him at 19 as a young man, at 45 as a military general and at 57 as the first U.S. President. This past August, Studio EIS in New York City began making the models.

A Historic Makeover
Jeffrey Schwartz leads the project. Schwartz is a forensic anthropologist, a scientist who studies bodies to learn a person's identity.

He and a team of researchers studied Washington's hair samples, dentures, eyeglasses and clothing. They pored over historical records and looked at paintings, although they did not trust all of the artworks. They knew that Washington rarely posed for portraits, and never before he was 40.

Researchers had one key clue. In 1785, French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon went to Virginia to make a statue of Washington. Houdon measured the 53-year-old general's body and also made a plaster mask of his face. This gave researchers accurate physical features to work with. "Certain bony places on his forehead and cheeks would be the same throughout his life," Schwartz told TFK.

Using Houdon's mask and statue and other data, researchers made a digital model of Washington at age 53. Aging him to 57 was hard work. Detectives use a similar, simpler process to create a photo of what a missing person might look like years later.

Making Washington at 19 and 45 was harder. Computer scientists at Arizona State University created a new program to help reverse the appearance of bone loss, wrinkles and other signs of aging. As a teen, Washington had all of his teeth, for example, so the model's jaw will be fuller.

The models will go on display at Mount Vernon in October 2006. "I'm desperate for him to speak," says Ivan Schwartz, the art director of Studio EIS. "I would love to hear the sound of his voice."

Next: Turin 2006: Skiing's First Family