QUESTIONS

1. Imagine you are a blacksmith living in early 18th century Concord. You want to build a new shed so your cow can move out of the house in winter and have a warm outbuilding, but you need money to do this. In addition to blacksmithing work, you could expand the services you offer to include:
a)  Veterinary care
b)  Dentistry
c)  Apothecary
d)  Alchemy
e)  Cartwright
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Answer: b) Dentistry. And if you think that’s weird, read the next answers because it gets weirder.


2. Although they are not primarily known for this today, which one of these famous Massachusetts residents was a trained dentist?
a)  Harvard graduate Ralph Waldo Emerson
b)  Concord minister Ezra Ripley
c)  Silversmith Paul Revere
d)  Surveyor Henry David Thoreau
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Answer: c) Silversmith Paul Revere. Silversmith and Son of Liberty Paul Revere is well known for his April 18th/19th, 1775 midnight ride call of “The Regulars are coming out!”, but he was also an expert in teeth coming out. After studying dentistry with English dentist and surgeon John Baker, who had arrived in Boston in the 1760s, Revere expanded his offered services to include dentistry. As advertised by Revere in a September 8, 1768, ad in The Massachusetts Gazette, his services included replacing lost teeth “with false ones, that look as well as the natural, and answers the end of speaking to all intents.”

3. You live in 18th or 19th century Concord and need a new pair of chompers. As an upper-class member of society, you have options and can afford whatever type of dentures you’d like. You could have a dentist make you a pair of dentures from which of the following:
a)  A complete set of a child’s baby teeth
b)  Teeth from dead corpses
c)  Ivory
d)  Porcelain
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Answer: All of them! Wealthy men and women could pay for the baby teeth of children from poor families to be pulled and placed into dentures or directly implanted in their mouths. Resurrectionists (grave robbers) and battlefield looters could “acquire” the teeth of the deceased to sell for dentures. Ivory teeth included ivory from elephants, walruses, and hippopotamuses. Porcelain teeth were developed in France in the early 1700s. The first porcelain teeth were prone to cracking but got better with time and are still used in dentistry today. If finances were an issue, you might still be able to get the false teeth you needed, for, as described by Surgeon Dentist R.C. Skinner in his 1801 Treatise on The Human Teeth, you could purchase artificial teeth of first-, second-, or third-rate quality with price points reflecting their difference.


4. Speaking of teeth…. In Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Jo March’s sisters tell her she can only make two things that are fit to eat. One is gingerbread and the other is:
a)  Molasses candy
b)  Caramel toffees
c)  Hot cross sticky buns
d)  Marshmallow fluff 
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Answer: a) Molasses candy


5. Fill in the blanks: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s wife, Sophia Peabody, was a talented ________ and daughter of a ___________:
a)  Fashion Model, Banker
b)  Poet, Writer
c)  Singer, Minister
d)  Artist, Dentist
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Answer: d) Artist, Dentist. Born on September 21, 1809, in Salem, MA, Sophia was a talented painter and artist. Her father, Dr. Nathaniel Peabody, was a dentist. Visit two houses in Concord where Sophia and Nathaniel Hawthorne lived: The Old Manse Museum on Monument Street, and the Wayside House on Lexington Road. And to learn more about Sophia, read Megan Marshall’s The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism.


6. In their lifetimes, Sophia Hawthorne and Louisa May Alcott were both treated with the medicine Calomel, an ingredient of which adversely affected both women leaving them with debilitating lifetime consequences. This was likely due to Calomel containing:
a)  Peanuts
b)  Mercury
c)  Cyanide
d)  Carbonic acid
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Answer: b) Mercury. As shared in Megan Marshall’s The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism, when Sophia was a child, her dentist father Nathaniel Peabody treated her teething with the common remedy of rubbing Calomel on her gums. This likely led to mercury poisoning and left her with a lifetime of debilitating headaches.

During the American Civil War, Louisa May Alcott went to Washington, DC to work as a Union Army Nurse. There she fell ill with typhoid fever. She was treated with Calomel, the drug also likely leading to chronic headaches and ill health from mercury poisoning.


7. Concord’s Ralph Waldo Emerson was associated with which philosophical movement?
a)  Spiritualism
b)  Pyrrhonism
c)  Sophism
d)  Transcendentalism
e)  Pyromaniasm
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Answer: d) Transcendentalism 

8. In the 1850s, the Spiritualism movement was sweeping across America. Driven by the beliefs of Swedish philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg, followers of spiritualism believed the spirits of the dead could communicate with the living, and one way to do this was through a special person known as a “Medium.” For a fee, believers could attend gatherings where the Medium might “channel” the dead, at times going into trances, appearing possessed, spasming, and conveying messages to the audience by either direct messaging or mysterious rapping (knocking) noises, table tilting, or wild phenomena that could only be interrupted by the Medium.  If you wanted to attend one of these gatherings, you would go to a/an:
a)  thé dansant
b)  Salon
c)  Séance
d)  Asylum
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Answer: c) Séance. Although he was friends with some followers of Spiritualism, including abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Ralph Waldo Emerson was not a fan of spiritualism, believing seances and spirit rappings to be full of fraud. In his essay “Demonology”, Emerson denounces spirit rappings and channelings as “drivel which they report as the voice of spirits.”

9. In 1852, Ralph Waldo Emerson was visiting New York when he met a woman formerly of Concord, Massachusetts, who was now working as a Medium and would “charge a pistareen (old Spanish silver coin) a spasm and nine dollars a fit.” Emerson wrote in his journal that before the woman was a Medium she was a mantua maker in Concord. What did a mantua maker do?
a)  Teach etiquette classes for young men
b)  Housekeeper for bachelors
c)  Beekeeper
d)  Make dresses
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Answer: d) Make dresses. A mantua (a kimono-like over-gown or robe) became fashionable for women in the late 17th century and remained a women’s wardrobe staple through the mid-1800s. Worn over an underdress or shirt, the mantua could be made of beautiful material, including silk, and contributed to an extravagant style. A mantua maker measured the client, draped, cut, and sewed the gown.

 

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For more than 50 years, Barrow Bookstore has been a favorite of residents and visitors alike, specializing in Concord authors and history, children’s books and literature. The shop also provides a wide array of gently read and rare titles ranging from paperbacks to first editions and original manuscripts. Staff members have all worked as tour guides and reenactors in Concord and are happy to share their knowledge about the town and its history. Discover more at barrowbookstore.com.