Rorotoko

In a nutshell

The Toothpick is a technical and cultural history of what is arguably the simplest of manufactured things. A wooden toothpick consists of a single part made of a single material and intended for a single purpose. Yet in spite of its apparent simplicity, the toothpick has a long history that is full of lessons about design, engineering, manufacturing, marketing, competition, and intellectual property—all of which are highly relevant to our global economy today.

The story of the toothpick is as old as civilization, and anthropologists have described picking one’s teeth as mankind’s oldest habit, evidence of it having been found in the form of grooves from aggressive toothpicking on two-million-year-old fossilized teeth. This book traces the evolution of the toothpick from found objects like grass stalks used in prehistoric times to the deliberately made metal, wood, and plastic tools of modern times.

The core of the book tells the story of the development of the mass production of wooden toothpicks, which was the brainchild of Charles Forster, a New Englander who worked in Brazil in the mid-nineteenth century. There, Forster noticed that natives had beautiful teeth, which he attributed to their use of handcrafted wooden toothpicks. At a time when machines were being invented for the mass production of everything from steel pins to leather shoes, Forster determined to do so for wooden toothpicks. His dream and goal was to make them so efficiently in New England that he could export them to South America at a profit.

With the monopoly guaranteed him by patent rights, and with clever marketing schemes, Forster succeeded in building a fortune on toothpick manufacture. At one time, 95 percent of all wooden toothpicks were made in Maine, and the Forster brand became known worldwide. With success came competition, however, not only domestically but also internationally. By the end of the twentieth century, American toothpick plants were having a difficult time competing with foreign products, and the last Maine factory closed about five years ago. Today, there are no wooden toothpicks made in the U.S. The story of the toothpick industry is the story of American industry generally.

This book also chronicles the way mass-produced toothpicks influenced social behavior. Changing and competing attitudes about toothpick use in public were shaped in part by the novelty of the disposable wooden toothpicks first as introduced by Charles Forster and later by their efficacy in promoting dental hygiene. Different cultural perspectives on toothpick use are also described in the book.

The wide angle

The Toothpick is a book in the tradition of my previous book The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance. I take as my principal subject an everyday object that by its commonness and familiarity is virtually invisible to its users and to society generally. The very ubiquity of something like a toothpick or a pencil means that it needs no exposition to introduce it to the reader, and so the book can focus immediately on the wider meanings and lessons implicit in the object and its history.

On one level, the wooden toothpick of Forster’s time was a totally regionally produced product. It was manufactured on machines invented and built in the Boston area out of wood that was harvested in the neighboring state of Maine. Frugal New Englanders did not at first beat a path to Charles Forster’s door, and so this pioneer toothpick manufacturer had to make them desire his product. Without his marketing genius, the wooden toothpick might have gone the way of so many forgotten possibilities buried with long-expired patents. In time, Forster moved his toothpick machinery to Maine, where the preferred wood (white birch) grew in abundance, and thereafter his factories were making not only toothpicks but also the machinery to make them in small Maine towns with little other industry.

No matter how local their origins, however, wooden toothpicks from Maine came to influence social behavior throughout the world. Like many a new product, at first they were bought and used (ostentatiously) by people of privilege. By the 1880s, wooden toothpicks were expected to be available in restaurants and hotels, and it was common to find dandies in top hat and tails, accompanied by a crutch-handled walking stick, chewing on a toothpick in front of the most fashionable establishments. Groups of such gentlemen, especially when they walked several abreast down a city street, came to be referred to as “crutch and toothpick brigades.” It was not long before young ladies took up the habit, causing no end of commentary in newspapers and magazines. Like fads generally, such practices were abandoned by the better classes as they filtered down to the poorer ones. In the early twentieth century, it was expected that books on etiquette address the toothpick matter.

The Toothpick moves naturally back and forth between the technological challenge of mass producing wooden toothpicks effectively and efficiently—and at a profit—and the social and cultural implications of their availability and affordability. The importance of a single visionary entrepreneur, in this case Charles Forster, who had a foot in both business and society, is central to the story. Thus, the book also explores the nature of the man and his inability to let go of the empire he built. The implications of Forster’s unusual last will and testament, in which he tried to direct the business from the grave, thus get several chapters in the book. For decades after he died, the toothpick business he founded and developed into a world-class enterprise was known legally and commercially as the Estate of Charles Forster.

By the 1880s, wooden toothpicks were expected to be available in restaurants and hotels, and it was common to find dandies in top hat and tails, accompanied by a crutch-handled walking stick, chewing on a toothpick in front of the most fashionable establishments. Groups of such gentlemen, especially when they walked several abreast down a city street, came to be referred to as “crutch and toothpick brigades.” It was not long before young ladies took up the habit, causing no end of commentary in newspapers and magazines. Like fads generally, such practices were abandoned by the better classes as they filtered down to the poorer ones.