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I saw something on the TV that showed George Washington's dentures that are in a museum (Baltimore?). They aren't wooden, but looked like they were made out of ivory or something. They interviewed historians and they seemed to say that the typical image that we have in our mind of Washington – closed-lipped, clenched jaw – was probably the result of him needing to keep his jaw tight so that his dentures did not spring out. They said that he had something like one natural tooth remaining by the time he was forty. From the look of dentures worn during that time, it looks like there was an actual spring that connected top to bottom, and I can imagine they would have been a pain to wear.I believe they also mentioned something about how he kept his inaugural speech short because of his dentures; must have been rather uncomfortable to open his mouth for long periods of time. I thought this was all interesting because it points to the fact that small details of history sometimes have played large parts in the way we view past figures and events.
Gilbert Stuart Williamstown Portrait of George Washington [Public domain], by Gilbert Stuart (1755–1828) Maybe he had more than one pair. The ones I saw on the show looked white, like they were made out of bone/ivory. Wooden dentures would be extremely annoying. I presume that civilization was at the point where people ate a lot of sugar but did not yet know how to cope with the effects of tooth decay. I recall hearing an archaeologist say how beautiful the teeth of Egyptian skulls are because they did not eat sugar.
I have heard that about sugar as well. If I remember right, the pair in the Smithsonian were wooden but had his original teeth attached.
I'm taking a American Revolution class as we speak and this topic came up. Actually what we discovered is he had a couple sets of dentures and the teeth were horse and donkey teeth, ivory, gold, lead and even human teeth. :oHe started to loose his teeth in his early 20's. The dentures didn't always fit right and that is why he always had the closed-lip, sour expression on his face.
