Customs and Fashions in Old New England — John Shaqi
Customs and Fashions in Old New EnglandEarle, Alice Morse
History
Customs and Fashions in Old New England
Earle, Alice Morse
New England -- Social life and customs -- To 1775
"Whereas many Persons are so unfortunate as to lose their Fore
Teeth by Accident or Otherways to their great Detriment not only in
looks but in speaking both in public and private. This is to inform
all such that they may have them replaced with Artificial Ones that
look as well as the Natural and answer the End of Speaking by Paul
Revere Goldsmith near the head of Dr. Clarkes wharf. All Persons
who have had false Teeth Fixed by Mr. Jos Baker Surgeon Dentist and
They have got loose as they will in Time may have them fastened by
above said Revere who learnt the method of fixing them from Mr.
Baker."
It will be remarked that these teeth were only to display and talk with,
and were but sorry helps in eating. This very appalling advertisement
from the _Massachusetts Centinel_ gives a clue to the way in which
missing teeth were replaced: "Live Teeth. Those Persons inclined to
dispose of Live Teeth may apply to Templeman." Or this from the
_Connecticut Courant_ of August 17, 1795: "A generous price paid for
Human Front Teeth perfectly sound, by Dr. Skinner." These "live teeth"
were inserted in other and vainer, if not more squeamish persons'
mouths, by a process of "in-grafting" which was much in vogue. There
were few New England dentists _eo nomine_ until well into this
century--but three in Boston in 1816. As silversmith and engraver Revere
also set teeth, so Isaac Greenwood, who waited at their houses on all
who required his dental services, also made umbrellas, sold cane for
hoop petticoats, and made dice and chessmen. Wm. Greenwood pulled teeth
and sold pianos; and Dr. Flagg, a surgeon dentist, advertised in 1797
that he would get hand-organs in Europe suitable for church use. John
Templeman, the live-teeth purchaser, was a broker as well as a dentist;
and Whitlock, the actor, did a thriving dental business, and doubtless
carried his "neat hawksbill or key-draught tooth-wrench" to the
play-house, and used it, to his own profit and his fellow-townsmen's
misery, between the acts.
Though the Pilgrim women were doubtless as simple at their toilet as
they were in their dress, the sudden growth of the colony in wealth
brought to their daughters, besides variety and richness of dress, a
love of cosmetics. Dunton tells positively of one painted face in Boston
in 1686. He said, "to hide her age she paints, and to hide her painting
dares hardly laugh." One New England minister thus reproved and warned
the women of his congregation: "At the resurrection of the Just there
will no such sight be met as the Angels carrying Painted Ladies in their
arms."
In the inventory of one of the early Cambridge settlers, Robert Daniel,
is found the item "two Ceruse Jugs." Ceruse was a preparation of white
lead with which women then painted their faces, and I think these ceruse
jugs were part of the paraphernalia of my Lady Daniel's toilet-table.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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