Philadelphia museum puts early presidents’ hair on display

PHILADELPHIA – Donald Trump’s gravity-defying hair has generated plenty of attention, but have you seen George Washington’s?

You can check it out this month in Philadelphia, where a museum has put the hair of some early presidents on display.

The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University is showcasing locks of hair once belonging to Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. The exhibit, called “Presidential Archives: Letters, Hair and Fossils,” runs through July 29, coinciding with the Democratic National Convention.

A Philadelphia attorney collected the specimens, which were given to the museum after his 1860 death.

Academy historian Robert Peck says it may seem like an odd hobby today. But he says it was once common for people to keep hair clippings from loved ones in “lockets, brooches, rings and pins.”