Why are Individuals so uniquely obsessive about teeth? Good white, straight teeth.
Making the American Mouth is directly a historical past of United States dentistry and a examine of a billion-greenback industry. Alyssa Picard chronicles the forces that restricted People entry to dental care within the early twentieth century and the methods dentists worked to broaden that entry--and enhance the public image of their profession. Comprehensive in scope, this work describes how dentists early public health commitments withered under the strain of fights over fluoride, mid-century social actions for racial and gender fairness, and stress to insure dental costs. It explains how dentists got here to promote cosmetic providers, and why Americans had been so keen to purchase them. As we move into the twenty-first century, dentists success in shaping their business signifies that for a lot of, the perfect American smile will remain a distant--although tantalizing--dream.