George Washington’s Teeth, Even Closer
Back in 2007, Boston 1775 ran an item titled “George Washington’s Teeth, Close Up.” It featured an image from the American Dental Association website of the first President’s false teeth, made by North End native John Greenwood. That A.D.A. webpage got edited away into the aether, as sometimes happens, and the image disappeared off the ’net.
But this year (actually next, judging by the copyright date) Lerner Classroom is publishing John Greenwood’s Journey to Bunker Hill, by Marty Rhodes Figley. The back of that book kindly recommends Boston 1775’s material on Greenwood. And then it says this site includes “a picture of the false teeth John made for George Washington!”
I can’t let the schoolchildren of America down. So with Google’s help I restored a smaller image of those teeth to the original posting. And now, thanks to Barista, I have the pleasure of sharing this larger picture of the same dentures. 
So now, children of America, you can sit down happily to your school lunches.
Still hungry? Here’s another set of Washington’s teeth on display at Mount Vernon.
4 comments:
Oh, dear, poor Mr. President! Is it any wonder that he couldn't chew meat?
But, ugh! Those dentures are quite reminiscent of Chiclet gum.
The image from the ADA's website was courtesy of the National Musuem of Dentistry, an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, located in Baltimore, MD, on the campus of the University of Maryland School of Dentistry (http://www.dentalmuseum.org/)
This is where you can find the actual denture on display. We are working to restore the history information to the ADA website which was temporarily removed while it goes through a redesign.
Thanks for the link to the Dental Museum!
Normally I’m not surprised or bothered when links go out of date; the internet is a roiling sea of data, after all. But in this case a printed book was promising a look at Gen. Washington’s dentures through this site, and I didn’t want to disappoint!
Thanks, Mr. Bell.
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