Privacy Policy Contact Us You may unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the provided link on any marketing message. Having dentures was a mark of wealth and privilege. But unlike most luxury goods, dentures were made to be hidden. Having the teeth of enslaved people in the mouth needed to be concealed as well, lest they become a literal manifestation of racial mixing.
Join our new membership program on Patreon today. JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. George Washington's teeth. By: Matthew Wills. February 25, March 2, These problems were likely due to factors common during Washington's era, including a poorly balanced diet and disease, as well as genetics. As a result, he spent his life in frequent pain and employed a variety of tooth cleaners, dental medicines, and dentures.
Contrary to later legend, none of Washington's false teeth were made of wood. Prior to Washington's service in the Revolutionary War, Dr. John Baker, the first dentist to fashion false teeth for Washington, fabricated a partial denture with ivory that was wired to Washington's remaining real teeth. In the s, Washington employed the services of Jean-Pierre Le Mayeur, a French dentist living in America, but it is unclear precisely what dental services Le Mayeur performed.
Le Mayeur probably fashioned a partial set of false teeth for Washington; the Frenchman also advertised he was experienced at "transplanting When Washington was inaugurated President in , only one real tooth remained in his mouth. John Greenwood—a New York dentist, former soldier in the Revolution, and a true pioneer in American dentistry—fashioned a technologically advanced set of dentures carved out of hippopotamus ivory and employing gold wire springs and brass screws holding human teeth.
While president of the United States, leading a nominally free country, he actively prevented his enslaved servants from learning of their own natural right to freedom. All history involves interpretation and personal bias, but with a subject as fraught as slavery and involving an icon like George Washington, responses can be all the more intense and emotional.
Stories like this provide us with the opportunity to investigate the evidence, to notice our responses to that evidence, and finally, perhaps most valuably, to examine why we are responding as we do. Ledger B, —, p. Etter, William H. See page Link to original. During his presidency, Washington was politically ambivalent about slavery; he signed some legislation, like the Slave Trade Act, that attempted to put some limits on the institution in the United States, but he also signed into law the Fugitive Slave Act, which allowed slave owners the right to come into slavery-free states to capture fugitive slaves.
Personally, however, Washington was a slave owner, and a standard one of his time, Gehred said: He bought and sold people, tried to chase them down when they ran away and, when he was living in the abolitionist city of Philadelphia, used legal loopholes to keep his slaves from meeting residency requirements that would have granted them freedom.
By the time of his death, Washington had living slaves, according to historians at Mount Vernon. In May , he certainly purchased teeth nine of them from some of his slaves. Lemoire," Gehred said, was a reference to Dr. Jean Le Mayeur, one of Washington's dentists, with whom he subsequently corresponded about purchasing a set of dentures.
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