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Why are Americans so uniquely obsessed with teeth? Brilliantly white, straight teeth?

Making the American Mouth is at once a history of United States dentistry and a study of a billion-dollar industry. Alyssa Picard chronicles the forces that limited Americans' access to dental care in the early twentieth century and the ways dentists worked to expand that access--and improve 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 movements for racial and gender equity, and pressure to insure dental costs. It explains how dentists came to promote cosmetic services, and why Americans were so eager to purchase them. As we move into the twentyfirst century, dentists' success in shaping their industry means that for many, the perfect American smile will remain a distant--though tantalizing--dream.

The University of Michigan School of Dentistry was established in 1875. Its first 100 years were years of evolution in dental education. The decades that followed have been nothing short of transformational. The U-M School of Dentistry has always set a high bar, not afraid to challenge the status quo and not content with the way things have always been done. Always asking, “how can we do this better.” The narrative starts in 1962 with a proposal for a new dental building and concludes, more than 55 years later, with a proposal for a major building renovation. What lies between is a story of vision and possibility for dental education that is unparalleled anywhere.
 
This book celebrates all that the professional community known as the U-M School of Dentistry has accomplished. Through good times and times of change, it has always been about the people—the drivers, the visionaries, and the innovators—who persisted regardless of the usual obstacles and inertia that often stand in the path of progress in higher education. They elevated the school to a world-class prominence that most definitely exemplifies the university’s history as home to the “leaders and best.”