May 16th, Thursday | Curious George escapes WWII

The date is May 16th, Thursday, and today I’m coming to you from Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

On this day in 1866, the United States Congress passed a bill to allow the minting of a new 5-cent coin, now known as the nickel. Why is the nickel so thick? The existing “half-dimes” prior to the nickel’s introduction were extremely thin, since they were half the size in weight of a dime, which was a tenth of the size of an American silver dollar. When the idea of using nickel in the 5-cent coin was proposed, it solved the problem of having to make such a tiny coin, since more nickel is needed to equal the value of silver. 

Of course it wasn’t Congress’s idea to use nickel. Rather using nickel in 5-cent coins got a big shove through Congress from wealthy industrialist Joseph Wharton who basically had a monopoly over the nickel mines and stood to make plenty of money from the idea. (For those wondering, Joseph Wharton is the founder of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.)

Today is the birthday of Margret Rey, German born illustrator and co-author of the Curious George book series. 

Margret fled Nazi Germany in 1935 in fear for her life. She ended up in Rio de Janeiro, where she met her future husband Hans Augusto Rey, a fellow Jew who had also fled Germany. They quickly fell in love and married that same year.  

When they moved to Paris in 1936, a publisher discovered Hans’s artwork and commissioned a children’s book. The book, Cecily G. and the Nine Monkeyswas perfectly acceptable, but the favorite character for the couple was one of the monkeys, Curious George. They began coming up with drawings and ideas for a book with Curious George as the main character. Margret worked mostly on the story with Hans on the illustrations. 

Before they could get the manuscript in front of anyone however, there was yet another near run-in with Nazi Germany. WWII was ramping up and in June 1940 German forces were days away from Paris. It was obvious the French army would not be able to stop them. Margret and Hans gathered up their most precious belongings, including the watercolor manuscript of the first Curious George book, and took off on their bicycles, headed for the Spanish border.

When they reached their final destination, New York City, they were able to secure a book deal. Curious George was an immediate success and the couple went on to write several more books in a Curious George series.

And today is the birthday of John Bulwer, English physician, born in 1606. Bulwer was intrigued by hand gestures and facial expressions as a universal language. He noticed that certain gestures were the same across counties, states, and even countries, concluding that gesturing was, in a way, man’s first language. 

Bulwer began to compile gestures and their universal meanings into a book. He ended up with two. The first was a dictionary of common gestures and hand formations along with their meanings. He titled it: Chirologia, or the Natural Language of the Hand. His second book was essentially an early self-help book for orators, advising them on how to use gestures to their advantage in public speaking.  

Infinitely curious about all things body language, Bulwer also studied the muscles of the face and facial expressions. He connected patterns of facial muscle movements to specific emotions. For example, he observed that a genuine smile includes a squeezing of muscles around the eyes, not just an upturn curve of the lips. Bulwer made these conclusions 200 years before Duchenne published The Mechanism of Human Facial Expressions. 

Additionally, Bulwer was an advocate for the deaf, being one of the first people to suggest there be special schools for the deaf and a language of gestures to aid communication. Most of Bulwer’s gestures and hand shapes from Chirologia are still in use in British Sign Language. 

The Look

Sara Teasdale

Strephon kissed me in the spring,

      Robin in the fall,

But Colin only looked at me

      And never kissed at all.

Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,

      Robin's lost in play,

But the kiss in Colin's eyes

      Haunts me night and day.

Thank you for listening. I’m your host, Virginia Combs, wishing you a good morning, a better day, and a lovely evening.