“Who was Major Carlos de Zafra?” by S.M. O’Connor

      Major Carlos de Zafra, Senior (1882-1967) was a naval architect, marine engineer, a businessman, and an academic in New York City who was successively a curator for the now-defunct Museum of the Peaceful Arts[1] in 1930 and the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago in 1931.  He was also a husband and the father of three sons, one of whom became a noted physicist.  His sons, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren have continued and built upon his legacy with contributions to public service, science, and education.   

      Born in New York City[2] Carlos de Zafra graduated from New York University in 1904.[3]  As a sophomore, he was News Editor, and later Associate Editor, of The Triangle, the successor publication to The University Item.  While he was a student, Scientific American Supplement published his article “The Cultivation of Tobacco in Connecticut” on January 25, 1902.  He was also an active acrobat in that period. 

     On December 10, 1906, he filed a patent for an explosive projectile.[4]  Subsequently, he received Patent #863,248 on August 13, 1907.  This must have remained an interest of his for some time.  In 1915, while Carlos De Zafra, M.E., was a lecturer at New York University, he wrote The Development of Armor-Piercing Shells (With Suggestions for their Improvement).   Two years later, he resigned his position with the Telautograph Corporation to accept a position as naval constructor with the Foundation Company, which was headquartered in the Woolworth Building in New York City.[5]

      In 1918, Charles Lincoln Seabury, an inventor of boilers and engines who had designed or built over 2,000 pleasure boats over the course of his career, became partners with Carlos de Zafra in 1918 in the firm of Seabury & De Zafra.[6]  Their headquarters was 150 Nassau Street in New York City.[7]  In the spring of 1922, Carlos de Zafra succeeded his late partner Charles L. Seabury when the Board of Seabury & de Zafra, Inc., Naval Engineers, Vessel and Insurance Brokers elected Major de Zafra to the presidency of the company.[8]  Later in 1922, Major de Zafra, then identified as a consulting naval architect and marine engineer, received an appointment to New York University’s engineering faculty in connection with the Sage Research Laboratory of Mechanical Engineering.[9]

      In 1929, he was Assistant Director of the Popular Science Institute.  He wrote at least one article for Popular Science.  “Choosing Tools to Last” was published in the March, 1929 issue.

      These days, museum curators usually have advanced degrees in art history or the history of technology, but back in the 1930s art museums often hired artists to be curators and science museums often hired scientists or engineers to be curators.  With a background in academia, business, and writing about technology, Major de Zafra had exactly the right kind of resume to become a curator for major new science museums in New York City and Chicago.

      In 1930, Major de Zafra joined the curatorium of the Museum of the Peaceful Arts to plan the Marine Transportation Section.  He likely wrote the article “A Museum of Marine Transportation” that was published in Motor Boating in November of 1930.

      The Museum of the Peaceful Arts, founded by the late Henry R. Towne and recently considerably enlarged in its new quarters at 220 East 42^nd Street, is now providing for a new Marine Transportation Section which is expected will ultimately become one of the world’s most important maritime museums.  Here will be found model ships showing the development in naval architecture from the ancient log dugout to the present transatlantic grayhound.[10]

      Major Carlos de Zafra has been commissioned to prepare the Marine Section, which it is planned to publicly open about March 1 [of 1931].  He will be interested in hearing from any who have models exceptional historical interest or value which they would like to see permanently housed where they may be of educational value and interest to the public.[11]

      In mid-1931, upon the resignation Fred A. Lippold as Curator of Shipbuilding & Navigation at the Museum of Science and Industry, Major de Zafra, Professor of Engineering at New York University, agreed to become Curator of Shipbuilding & Navigation on a short-term basis.  Thus, he helped develop one of the M.S.I.’s oldest exhibits.  [Now called the Ships Gallery, presented by Captain Dave Truitt, which officially opened to the public on the Lower Level (ground floor) of the M.S.I.’s West Gallery on Thursday, November 10, 2016.]  He seems to have written the short article about the exhibit of model ships, “Exhibits Show Development of Water Transportation,” that was published in Marine Review.

THE Museum of Science and Industry, founded by Julius Rosenwald in Chicago, has recognized the importance of water transportation as an agent of civilization by providing approximately 22,000 square feet of its floor space for depicting the developments of shipbuilding and navigation. This space is being divided into twelve sections, as follows: Primitive craft, evolution of the sail ship, evolution of the merchant steamer, development of lake and ocean freighters, inland water transportation, shipbuilding, development of ship propulsion, ship interiors and interior equipment, deck and miscellaneous accessories, navigation, marine industries, pleasure craft, yachts, etc.[13]

In the presentation of over 225 models which will comprise the various exhibits, modern ideas in museum setting will be carried out to the full extent. Many of the exhibits will be so arranged that they may be operated by the visitor. For instance, a model of the six-masted schooner William L. Douglas will be mounted on a marine railway which will travel back and forth so that the visitor may see just how vessels are hauled out on such railways for under-water repairs. Likewise a floating dry dock will rise and lift a steamship out of the water or lower it to floating position. Models of various life saving devices will likewise be operated by the visitor and numerous dioramas will educate him in the differences between the methods of towing on the Mississippi river and the deep water towing along the Atlantic coast.[14]

There will be a full-sized replica of a small sailing ship on which the visitor may go aboard to see how the sailor lives surrounded by the various equipment to be found in the fo’castle. There will be a pilot house in which the visitor may simulate the steering of a ship by turning the steering wheel which will cause reactions similar to those of a ship responding to the helm.[15]

The marine section of the Museum of Science and Industry is under the curatorship of Major Carlos de Zafra, formerly consulting naval architect with the late Charles L. Seabury, who has had considerable experience in maritime displays and who has secured a leave of absence from the engineering department of the New York university to give his entire time to the planning of this section of the museum.[16]

      On Wednesday, April 22, 1936, Major Carlos de Zafra, Professor of Engineering at New York University and former Curator of Shipbuilding & Navigation at the M.S.I., delivered a speech entitled “Public Education through the New Technique of the Industrial Museum” for the Andiron Club of New York.  In it, he covered the Musée des Arts et Métiers (Museum of Arts and Crafts) of the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts) in Paris, the Deutsches Museum von Meisterwerken der Naturwissenschaft und Technik (German Museum of Masterpieces of Science and Technology),^[17] and the M.S.I.

      Major de Zafra obtained the mast from Shamrock IV, the racing yacht of Sir Thomas Johnstone Lipton, 1^st Baronet (1848-1936), as the Battery Hill Memorial flagpole as a gift to New York University from the Class of 1904.[18]  A self-made man, Sir Thomas Lipton was a Scotch-Irish merchant, brilliant self-promoter, sportsman, and philanthropist whom King Edward VII made a Knight Commander and a baronet, presented it himself.  [His father had owned a small shop in Glasgow, but after he a stint as a sailor that allowed him to save up enough money to come to America, he learnt how American department store founders[19] were revolutionizing the retail trade in New York City and subsequently built a chain of grocery stores across Scotland.  However, Thomas Lipton is best remembered now for founding Lipton’s Tea (now called Lipton Tea) after a trip to a tea plantation on the isle of Ceylon in 1890 and as a yachtsman who vainly tried to win the America’s Cup with his racing yachts Shamrock in 1899, Shamrock II in 1901, Shamrock III in 1903, Shamrock IV in 1920, and Shamrock V in 1930.  The cowboy, stage and screen actor, humorist, and newspaper columnist Will Rogers (1879-1935) organized a campaign to raise money to buy a gold “loving cup” for Lipton, whom he dubbed the world’s “most cheerful loser.”  Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia (1882-1947) presented it to Sir Thomas Lipton in 1935.] The University Heights campus of New York University is now the site of Bronx Community College of the City University of New York.

***

      I have revised and expanded this part of Major Carlos de Zafra’s biography after his granddaughter, Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell, whom I mentioned in the original version, supplied information I did not previously have about her family in the comments section, and that led to correspondence between us and additional research on my part.

      Major Carlos de Zafra was married twice and had a total of three sons, all three of whom were accomplished men.  Firstly, in 1911, he wed Mary Elizabeth Merriam (1877-1940), who had attended the Abbott Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. [20]  She was born in Rochester, New York. [21]  On her father’s side, she was descended from the Merriam family of Springfield, Massachusetts, who were famous publishers.[22]  Her mother was Elizabeth Georgina (Wolcott) Merriam, who was a descendant of Oliver Wolcott, Senior (1726-1797), one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.[23] 

Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell explained, “Mary Elizabeth Merriam de Zafra was the granddaughter of Homer Merriam, the youngest of the ‘dictoonary brothers’ in Springfield, Massachusetts.  He was a printer in his brothers’ business.  His son, Henry Homer Merriam, was m dictionary sales and marketing—a function which required travel.  In Rochester, he boarded with the George Wolcott family, and met his (first) wife, Elizabeth Georgina Wolcott.”[24]

      With Mary Elizabeth (Merriam) de Zafra, Carlos had his first son, Carlos de Zafra, Junior (1912-1979), who went on to become a high school teacher and prolific author. Major Carlos de Zafra, Senior, took, for his second wife, Ellen (Knox) de Zafra (1892-1984), who was ten years his junior.  She was a seamstress who worked in a design house, and they had two sons. Lieutenant Colonel Charles Roderick de Zafra, Senior (1925-1995) served in the Army Signal Corps and fought in the Korean War.  Dr. Robert Lee de Zafra (1932-2017) was a famous physicist who died at age of eighty-five in 2017.  As of the 1940 U.S. Census, fifty-seven-year-old Professor Carlos de Zafra, Sr. lived in Scarsdale, New York with forty-seven-year-old Ellen de Zafra; fourteen-year-old Charles R. de Zafra; eight-year-old Robert de Zafra; and Ellen’s parents: sixty-eight-year-old Charles Knox and sixty-eight-year-old Mary Lee Knox.[25]

      Of Ellen (Knox) de Zafra, Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell wrote, “I remember her well, and fondly.”[26]  Ellen had an identical twin sister, Jessie.[27]  The twin sisters were the youngest siblings in their family.[28]  After Carlos retired, he, Ellen, and Jessie purchased a vacation spot near Bar Harbor, Maine, which they operated over several summers in the 1950s.[29]  Ellen rented out rooms in the main house and cabins.[30]  Jessie was the chef for the tearoom, which served lunches, and catered events.[31]  Carlos kept the buildings in repair.[32]  They spent their winters in those years in Florida.[33] 

      During this period of his life, Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell recalls, her grandfather was able to indulge in three hobbies.[34]  Firstly, he drew “finely detailed pen-and-ink landscape drawings.”[35]  Secondly, he carved or whittled “wood figures, each of which had a distinct personality.”[36]  Thirdly, he built and rigged “miniature ship models, each of which was an accurate reconstruction.”[37] Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell commented, “My sister and I were in awe of Grandpa’s patience, skill, and attention to detail.”[38]

      He was not born in Rochester, New York, as stated in his Democrat and Chronicle obituary, according to his daughter.[39]  Rather, after his parents wed in Rochester in 1911, they honeymooned in Europe, and afterwards moved into Carlos de Zafra, Senior’s home in New York City, where his mother also lived.[40]  Carlos de Zafra, jr. was born in the homeopathic hospital in Yonkers, New York.[41]  [Yonkers is a city in its own right and an inner suburb of Great New York City, being north of the Bronx.]  After Carlos de Zafra, Sr. and Mary Elizabeth (unfortunately) separated, she brought Carlos de Zafra, Jr, with her to Rochester, where she raised him with the help of her mother.[42]  After Carlos de Zafra, Sr. re-married, Carlos de Zafra, Jr. used to visit his father and stepmother over the summers at their summer home in Connecticut.[43]

Carlos de Zafra, Jr. graduated Phi Beta Kappa from New York University, where he earned both his bachelor’s degree and his master’s degree.  He was a high school teacher and prolific writer who published over 100 articles and three pamphlets on educational matters. 

Clearing House magazine (not to be confused with Publishers Clearing House), a social studies journal, published many of his articles.[44]  He was an associate editor for that periodical as well as a writer.[45]

Carlos de Zafra, Jr. was proud of being descended from Oliver Wolcott.  Both Carlos de Zafra, Jr. and his wife, Dorothea (Michelsen) de Zafra (1909-2009), taught at John Marshall High School in Rochester, New York.  He taught social studies and she taught German at John Marshall High School and previously he taught in Holland, New York; in Batavia, New York; and in Benjamin Franklin High School. 

As Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell explained, her mother, Dorothea (Michelson) de Zafra was bulled as a German-American schoolgirl during the First Great World War and that experience “stayed with her.”[46] In addition, she was “subjected to social shunning” due to being “a rural student attending a town high school.”[47]

Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell wrote, “She was a high-achieving scholar but always sensitive to others.  The first in her extended family to attend college, Dorothea Senior majored in European History, minored in German, played on the women’s field hockey team, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Rochester…”[48] She graduated just past her twentieth birthday in 1929.[49]

Subsequently, she earned her Master’s degree in History, and became a librarian in Rochester.[50]  After a few years, though, she became a high school teacher who taught Social Studies and German.[51]

Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell continued, “Motherhood brought an end to her professional life as it did to most women of her generation, but social norms encouraged volunteering, and my mother found her calling in Girl Scouting.  She rose through several positions to become Vice President of the Girl Scouts of Rochester and the Genesee Valley.  Upon retiring from Scouting, she changed her focus to church work and to historic preservation, becoming a founding member of the Board of Trustees of the local historical society, researching, writing, and giving public presentations.  Well into her eighties she was still giving walking tours of her historic neighborhood as well as illustrated lectures at local venues such as nursing homes and libraries.”[52]

Carlos de Zafra, Jr. also taught teaching methods in the field of social studies at the University of Rochester and elsewhere in the state.  Furthermore, Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell recalled, “He was also the guidance counselor and then vice-principal in the 1950s of an evening high school in Rochester for working adults.  Many of its students in those years were refugees from war-torn Europe who spoke little, if any, English and who presented a variety of diplomas, certificates, and credentials in many languages.   Dad welcomed the challenge of placement and mentoring them.  He himself became a master teacher, mentoring new faculty at his school, and becoming New York State Social Studies Teacher of the Year at one point.  In the 1960’s he was an adjunct faculty member at the (then) School of Education at the University of Rochester, teaching ‘Methods of Teaching the Social Studies’ in addition to his ‘day job’ at Charlotte High School.”[53] 

His final teaching post was at Charlotte High School, from which he retired in 1970.  De Zafra sat on the Board of Directors of the Universalist Church of Rochester and was the founding president of the Robert Morris Council for Social Studies in Batavia.  In an e-mail, Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell stated her father “played the flute and piccolo in both a community orchestra and a volunteer fire department marching band.  The latter won a statewide competition in 1968, and with it an invitation to march in the… [Rose Bowl] Parade in Pasadena, CA on New Year’s Day, 1969.  That day was a highlight of Dad’s life.”[54]  He was survived by his wife and their two daughters: Martha Merriam de Zafra Harnish (1945-2000) and Dorothea Elizabeth de Zafra. 

Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell wrote, “My sister, Martha Merriam de Zafra Harnish, was born in 1945, and music was her life from a young age.  Dad was her first flute teacher.  She majored in music at the University of Rochester and earned a Master’s degree in performance from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.  She married her college sweetheart and taught piano and flute until cancer struck her at the age of 30.  Following successful surgery, she reevaluated her life.  Then, focused as always, she returned to school for both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work, divorced, and began a clinical career working with individual clients and family dynamics around terminal illness. As stressful as her second career was, Martha had the same quick wit and dry humor that our grandfather (Carlos Sr.) did… and found pleasure in life and comfort in her friends and family of pets.  She died at the age of 55 from autoimmune disease—lupus and a recurrence of cancer.  While ill, she volunteered as a model patient at the University of Rochester Medical Center, helping to teach medical students diagnostic interviewing techniques.  She instructed them not to define a patient by their illness, but to treat and support them as a whole human being.”[55]

Dorothea E. de Zafra earned her Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Rochester, from which she graduated magna cum laude in 1963.  She earned a Master of Public and International Affairs (M.P.I.A.) degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1965.  For the next four years, she worked in the field of international education.

In 1969, she joined the Federal Government as a management intern in the U.S. Public Health Service (P.H.S.).  She gained a legislative analyst position in the Office of Program Implementation, overseen by the Assistant Secretary for Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (D.H.H.S.)

The Privacy Act (1974) required protection of personal privacy in U.S. Government records, and she became the Public Health Service (P.H.S.) Privacy Act Officer.  As such, she oversaw the implementation and compliance with the Privacy Act in all agencies that comprised the P.H.S.  She served in this position for ten years, chaired an interagency working group, edited the newsletter of the American Society of Access Professionals, and briefed officials.  In 1982, she received a Special Recognition Award from the Assistant Secretary for Health.

By 1984, records automation moved from mainframe computers to distributed processing, Dorothea de Zafra received a mandate to study P.H.S. computer security practices and to make recommendations.  Her report led to the creation of a new post, the P.H.S. Information Systems Security Program Manager.  She herself held this post until she moved to the D.H.H.S.’s National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (N.I.A.A.A.) in 1996. 

Ms. de Zafra was one of the founders of the Federal Information Systems Security Educators Association (F.I.S.S.E.A.).  She was a member of its board and served as F.I.S.S.E.A. President for the term 1993-94.

She held a workshop with the title “Needs for the Nineties: Growing Professionalization of Security Training and Security Trainers” at the 16^th National Computer Security Conference for information technology (I.T.) professionals.  She also a board member of the Federal Government-wide Computer Security Program Managers Forum, which the National Institute of Standards and Technology (N.I.S.T.) in the U.S. Department of Commerce hosted.  In that capacity, she chaired a working group that resulted in training standards for the whole Federal Government: N.I.S.T. Special Publication 800-16, “Information Technology Security Training Requirements: A Role- and Performance-Based Model.”  In 1997, she and the other members of the working group collectively received the F.I.S.S.E.A.’s Educator of the Year Award.

In 1994, she received an Exemplary Service Award from the Assistant Secretary for Health.  The next year, she received a Federal 100 Award from Federal Computer Week magazine.

The D.H.H.S. had nominated her for a full-time semester-long I.T. management (I.T.M.) certification program at the National Defense University, which she completed.  However, Federal Government downsizing in the 1990s led to the liquidation of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, so she had been poised to transition from systems security to information technology management, but, in the end, she transferred to the N.I.A.A.A. at the National Institutes of Health (N.I.H.). Dorothea E. de Zafra served as Director of Science Education at the N.I.A.A.A. from 1995 to 2002.  In the late 1990s, she represented the N.I.A.A. on the D.I.H. Diversity Council.  In 1998, she received an Equal Employment Opportunity (E.E.O.) Special Achievement Award from the N.I.A.A.A. She worked with a clinical investigator on a series of three publications she edited in 1999-2000 for N.I.A.A.A. publication on fetal alcohol distribution that gave recommendations for ways to prevent and treat the problem.

In 2001, Dorothea E. de Zafra wed Wilbur Atwell, Ph.D. (1933-2014).  Born in Trinidad, Wilbur Munroe Atwell had followed his father into the pharmacy profession before he immigrated to the U.S.A. in 1960.  He studied sociology at Howard University and went on to earn a doctorate at George Washington University in 1977. He thereupon entered a career treating drug addicts in the Department of Psychiatry at Howard University Hospital.  Subsequently, he became Associate Professor at Howard University’s School of Nursing. He taught students who were preparing to enter health professions and provided clinical counseling to drug addicts and A.I.D.S. patients. 

In 2002, Dorothea E. de Zafra-Atwell retired.    From 2004 to 2006, Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell served as international alumni liaison for the Alumni Council of the University of Pittsburgh’s Alumni Association.  During this period, she developed a proposal for foreign alumni chapter. 

In 2006, she delivered the commencement address at the Graduate School of Public Service and International Affairs (G.S.P.D.I.A.) at the University of Pittsburgh with the title “Life After GSPIA: Success in Dealing with Plan B.”   She received the G.S.P.I.A.’s Volunteer Service Award.

Concerned about the aging process and eldercare, Dorothea E. de Zafra-Atwell formed a group at her church that met for about five years to discuss “creative aging.”  She also organized three workshops at the church on “long-term-care planning” and eldercare.

At her death in 2009, at the age of ninety-nine, Dorothea (Michelsen) de Zafra was survived by her daughter, Dorothea Elizabeth de Zafra-Atwell, and son-in-law, Wilbur Atwell.  Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell and Wilbur Atwell volunteered as long-term-care ombudsman representatives.  In 2010, they became credentialed and they served residents and staff at an assisted living home through the end of 2011.

            In 2010, Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell joined the Council of Former Federal Executives and Associates and served on the board from 2013 to 2016.  Monthly luncheon meetings in the region of Washington, D.C. bring together officials, diplomats, and academics, as well as journalists.

Professor Wilbur Atwell died in Burtonsville, Maryland due to pancreatic cancer on Monday, August 4, A.D. 2014.  He was survived by his second wife, Dorothea; his sons by his first marriage, Nigel and Darryl; his daughter-in-law, Tiffany; and grandson, Alexander. 

            After Dr. Atwell died, Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell moved back to Rochester.  She served on the Lifelong Learning Advisory Council of the University of Rochester’s Alumni Association.  She was also involved in the formation of a non-profit organization devoted to local history.

In July of 2020, Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell wrote me, “I have been widowed since 2014, and am now happily in a new relationship since moving back to Rochester.  I have also been able to indulge my penchant for an international worldview (which included my husband’s Caribbean-American culture) by visiting since his passing my relatives in Germany as well as traveling to the Canadian Arctic (in winter) and the Republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Indonesia (twice).  Now grounded by the coronavirus, I am (at last) exploring the local Finger Lakes region of my home state as it reopens.”[56]    

      Lieutenant Colonel Charles Roderick de Zafra, Senior served in the Army Signal Corps and was wounded in the Korean War.  He and his wife, Ann Kathryn (Hunt) de Zafra (1924-1990), had one son, Charles Roderick de Zafra, Junior (1945-2012).  They also later adopted four more children.  Thus, Major Carlos de Zafra, Sr. had a total of seven grandchildren, though he did not live long enough to meet all of them.

      Born on September 16, 1945, in Northfield, Vermont, Charles Roderick (“Chuck”) de Zafra, Jr. served in the U.S. Army from 1963 to 1965 and died in Boulder, Colorado on March 7, 2012 at the age of sixty-six, having succumbed to cancer.  He was survived by his wife of forty-four years, Glenna; sons Lieutenant Colonel Charles Roderick de Zafra III (Marcie) and Aaron Anthony de Zafra (Christina); and four grandchildren: Ethan Alexander, Emily Grace, Sophie Katherine, and David Charles.  [Charles Roderick de Zafra III continued the de Zafra family tradition of service in the American Armed Forces, but he notably joined the U.S. Marine Corps rather than the U.S. Army.] Thus, Major Carlos de Zafra has at least four great-grandchildren.

Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell related that Chuck (Charles Roderick de Zafra, Jr.) had a career in computer technology after he left the U.S. Army.  However, he “was so fascinated by our Uncle Robert’s research in Antarctica that he spent the last years of his career working [in logistics] for the contractor responsible for supplying the Antarctic McMurdo research station with everything from groceries to facilitate construction and repair materials to medical supplies.”[57]  

      Dr. Robert Lee de Zafra received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in 1958, taught at Stony Brook University for thirty-eight years, and was a resident of Setauket on Long Island.[58]   He was concerned with the rehabilitation of historical buildings and preservation of green space in Setaucket.[59]  He bought three historic properties to ensure the community maintained its character.[60]  [Setaucket was the center of the Culper Spy Ring, as depicted in the television series Turn: Washington’s Spies (2014-2017).[61]]  He resided in one of them with his second wife, Julia M. Phillips-Quagliata.[62]  In 1986, he participated in the first National Ozone Expedition to McMurdo Station in Antarctica, which Dr. Susan Solomon of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration headed.[63] Dr. de Zafra’s group used a spectrometer he and colleagues at Stony Brook University had developed to study chlorine monoxide levels, and concluded the chemical was present in Antarctica in much higher levels than in other latitudes.[64]  The expedition concluded that chlorofluorocarbons, which were used both in refrigerants and as aerosol can propellants were responsible for the annual thinning of the ozone layer over Antarctica, the so-called hole in the ozone layer, which resulted in leaders of countries around the world hammering out the Montreal Protocol in 1987.[65]  Under this accord, governments created a timetable for companies to phase out chlorofluorocarbons in the hope that the ozone layer would then be able to heal itself, so to speak.[66] According to The New York Times obituary, Dr. de Zafra was survived by his wife, Julia.[67] He was also survived by his niece, Dorothea, the daughter of his elder half-brother, Carlos de Zafra, Jr.; as well as the children and grandchildren of his elder brother, Lt. Col. Charles Roderick de Zafra, Sr.

ENDNOTES

---

[1] The Museum of the Peaceful Arts later changed its name to the New York Museum of Science and Industry with the permission of the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Science and Industry.

[2] We would now say he was born in the Borough of Manhattan, but he was born before the City of New York merged with Brooklyn, western Queens County, and Staten Island to form the City of Greater New York in 1898.

[3] “Gym Team Managers Elected,” The Triangle, 16 January, 1902, p. 92

[4] Patent #863,248.  The projectile was patented on August 13, 1907.

[5] “Men of the Iron Trade: Personal News of a Business Character Regarding Men of Affairs of the Industry,” Iron Trade Review, Volume 61, 9 August, 1917, p. 306

[6] “Obituaries,” Marine Review, May, 1922, p. 217

[7] Ibid

[8] “Seabury & Zafra to Enlarge,” The Nautical Gazette, 29 April 1922, p. 537

[9] “Appointed to New York University,” Motor Boat, 25 November, 1922, p. 40

[10] “A Museum of Marine Transportation,” Motor Boating, November, 1930, p. 74

[11] “A Museum of Marine Transportation,” Motor Boating, November, 1930, p. 74

[12] E-mail from Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell to Seán M. O’Connor, dated June 9, A.D. 2020

[13] “Exhibits Show Development of Water Transportation,” Marine Review, November, 1931, p. 63

[14] “Exhibits Show Development of Water Transportation,” Marine Review, November, 1931, p. 63

[15] “Exhibits Show Development of Water Transportation,” Marine Review, November, 1931, p. 63

[16] “Exhibits Show Development of Water Transportation,” Marine Review, November, 1931, p. 63

[17] Please note that at the time Waldemar Kaempffert, the first Executive Director of the Museum of Science and Industry, began to bring Julius Rosenwald’s vision into reality, he translated the Deutsches Museum von Meisterwerken der Naturwissenschaft und Technik as “German Museum of Masterworks of Science and Technology” but today the institution calls itself the German Museum of Masterpieces of Science and Technology” in English-language version of its Website.

[18] E-mail from Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell to Seán M. O’Connor, dated June 9, A.D. 2020

[19] His mentor was Alexander Turney Stewart (1803-1876), a fellow Scotch-Irish immigrant, who founded the department store and wholesaler, and mail-order retailer A.T. Stewart & Company, and was also a real estate investor and railroad founder.  He was one of the richest men in American history.

[20] E-mail from Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell to Seán M. O’Connor, dated April 25, A.D. 2020

[21] E-mail from Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell to Seán M. O’Connor, dated April 25, A.D. 2020

[22] E-mail from Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell to Seán M. O’Connor, dated April 25, A.D. 2020

Brothers George Merriam (1803-1880) and Charles Merriam founded G. & C. Merriam, Inc. in 1831.  They were printers, bookbinders, and booksellers.  After the lexicographer, author, and editor Noah Webster, Junior (1758-1843) died, they purchased the rights to continue publication of his book An American Dictionary of the English Language, first published in 1828.  In 1964, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. publishers of the Encyclopædia Britannica, purchased G. & C. Merriam, Inc. and it became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.  In 1982, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. changed the name of G. & C. Merriam, Inc. to Merriam-Webster, Incorporated.

[23] E-mail from Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell to Seán M. O’Connor, dated April 25, 2020

As a representative of Connecticut in the Continental Congress, Oliver Wolcott, Senior signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Articles of Confederation in 1777.  During the American War of Independence, Wolcott also represented the Continental Congress as Commissioner of Indian Affairs and served as a major-general in the Connecticut Militia.  After the war, he was elected successively to the posts of Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut (1786-1796) and Governor of Connecticut (1796-1797) as a member of the Federalist Party. 

[24] E-mail from Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell to Seán M. O’Connor, dated July 18, A.D. 2020

[25] 1940 U.S. Census

[26] E-mail from Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell to Seán M. O’Connor, dated April 25, A.D. 2020

[27] Ibid

[28] Ibid

[29] Ibid

[30] Ibid

[31] Ibid

[32] Ibid

[33] Ibid

[34] E-mail from Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell to Seán M. O’Connor, dated April 26, A.D. 2020

[35] Ibid

[36] Ibid

[37] Ibid

[38] Ibid

[39] E-mail from Dorothea de Zafra-Atwell to Seán M. O’Connor, dated July 18, A.D. 2020

[40] Ibid

[41] Ibid

[42] Ibid

[43] Ibid

[44] Ibid

[45] Ibid

[46] Ibid

[47] Ibid

[48] Ibid

[49] Ibid

[50] Ibid

[51] Ibid

[52] Ibid

[53] Ibid

[54] Ibid

[55] Ibid

[56] Ibid

[57] Ibid

[58] Neil Genzlinger, “Robert de Zafra, Who Made Key Findings on Ozone, Dies at 85,” The New York Times, 22 October, 2017 (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/22/obituaries/robert-de-zafra-who-made-key-findings-on-ozone-dies-at-85.html) Accessed 12/20/17

[59] Ibid

[60] Ibid

[61] Ibid

[62] Ibid

[63] Ibid

[64] Ibid

[65] Ibid

[66] Ibid

[67] Ibid

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