Abstract
In interwar America, the relatively young profession of dentistry was developing rapidly. As the government, health institutions, and social organizers focused more intently on notions of national wellness, questions about how to achieve a healthy smile—and what a healthy smile should look like—proliferated. Groups like the National Dental Association worked to establish rigorous standards of technique, define ethical behavior, and encourage dentists to develop business acumen, yet the surprising proliferation of blues songs about dubious dentists tricking unassuming clients, or about fraught love affairs allegorized by disastrous dental exams, highlights the equivocal nature of many developments in early dentistry.
This article discusses several blues songs from the 1920s that engage with oral health, analyzing their messages and history against the context of public-health initiatives and advertising campaigns directed at working-class African Americans—the blues’ primary listenership—as well as discourse within professional dental journals. It concludes that engagement with music about oral healthcare, both historical and contemporary, offers avenues for productive self-reflection, insight into patient anxiety, and opportunities for accountability to marginalized patients.
Recommended Citation
McVeigh, Bronwen PhD
(2026)
"The Racial Politics of Early Dentistry and the Terrible “Toothache Blues”,"
Journal of the American College of Dentists: Vol. 92:
No.
2, Article 4.
Available at:
https://commons.ada.org/jacd/vol92/iss2/4
Included in
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