Call Number:

Ms. Codex 1760

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Extent:

0.1 linear_foot (1 volume)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

William H. Trueman collection of dental advertisements, circa 1900, Ms. Codex 1760, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

circa 1900 (inclusive)

Creator:

Trueman, William H.

Form:

Advertisements, Reprographic copies, and Albums (books)

Abstract:

This album contains about twenty reprographic copies of dental advertisements (published between 1767 and 1828) collected by William H. Trueman (1842-1927). Trueman, a graduate of University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine, practiced dentistry in Philadelphia for over fifty years and was an authority on the subject of dental history. The images in this album primarily advertise the services of individual dentists, and together provide information about this profession in the late eighteenth century United States.

William H. Trueman was born in England in 1842 and moved with his family to the United States at age four. He began his dental training early, under Dr. Henry Winterbottom of Philadelphia, in 1857. Trueman later attended the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine (known then as the Dental Department of the University of Pennsylvania) and went on to practice dentistry in Philadelphia for the next five decades. Interested in the history of dentistry (an obituary describes him as an "authority" on the subject), Trueman chaired a committee on the history of dentistry and helped to edit a three volume History of Dental Surgery published in 1910. William Trueman was married to Mary Stewart Trueman, and passed away in 1927. Source: "Dr. William H. Trueman." The Journal of the American Dental Association, Volume 14 , Issue 11 (1927): 2104. Retrieved from: http://jada.ada.org/article/S1048-6364(27)11024-5/abstract

This album contains about twenty reprographic copies of early American dental advertisements and other texts and images relating to dental history. The advertisements featured in the album were published in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century newspapers including the Pennsylvania Chronicle and Universal Advertiser, the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser, the Baltimore Republican, the Boston Columbian Centinel and the Saturday Evening Post. Most of these clippings extol the skill of a particular dental surgeon or the value of a product like "Venus Tooth Powder." One clipping, originally published anonymously in a 1784 issue of the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser, is a sarcastic invective against "a certain BARBER in Arch-street" which accuses the practitioner of "mischief… lies [and] insolence." The remaining reprographic copies included in the album depict a woodcut of "Appolonia, the Patron Saint of Dentistry" found in a Spanish dental treatise from 1557, two pages of a sixteenth century medical text (in Latin) which relate to tooth extraction, and two portraits of French dentists (Ambroise Pare and Joseph Lamaire). This album was put together by William H. Trueman (1842-1927), a dentist interested in the history of his profession. The volume is undated, but the brand of the album itself ("The Rembrandt Album" by Williams, Brown & Earle) is advertised in a 1899 magazine, The Photo-Miniature, so it is likely the collection was put together around that time. Most of the images are captioned with their source, and there are a few empty pages at the back of the album.