Extra Credit Questions

[David Lockmiller]

Sometime in 1867 Mary took Tad to a Chicago dentist who fitted [Tad] with a primitive set of braces to fix his overbite. Tad got up from the dentist’s chair wearing a barbaric “spring frame” in his mouth. The science of orthodontics was still in the early stages of development; the first paper on orthodontics, written by Dr. Norman Kingsley, had been published in a professional journal just a decade earlier. Although the technique of extracting teeth to improve the alignment of the mouth had been known since ancient times, Dr. Kingsley, a dentist and sculptor, made the important discovery that mild force, at timed intervals, could straighten crooked teeth. But the device in Tad’s mouth was pure torture. It also exacerbated his speech impediment and made it difficult for him to be understood by strangers. His fellow students at the Brown School also teased him unmercifully.

“It was annoying Tad very much,” Robert wrote David Davis. “He could hardly speak so as to be understood and to keep him talking in that way for a year, I thought, with his present bad habits of speech, to be risking so much.” Robert took his little brother to another dentist who examined the lad and declared that the spring frame apparatus “was not at all necessary.” That was the professional opinion Robert was looking for, and the device was extracted from Tad’s mouth. Robert then arranged to take Tad to Dr. Amasa McCoy, a well-known orator and professor of elocution and vocal culture, to correct Tad’s lisp and work on his pronunciation. “I think he is improving under McCoy’s efforts,” Robert reported.

(The Last Lincolns: The Rise and Fall of a Great American Family by Charles Lachman, page 93.)

By comparison, Tad's life in the White House with his brother Willie and his father was such a joyful and fulfilling experience.