On exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh, from September 10, 2010, through January 21, 2011, will be a traveling exhibition called Discover the Real George Washington: New Views from Mount Vernon. It includes about 100 artifacts pertaining to the first US President, including (shown here) the only surviving complete set of his dentures.
This reminds us of a story about architect Frank Lloyd Wright, as told by Edgar Tafel in his About Wright: An Album of Recollections By Those Who Knew Frank Lloyd Wright. New York: John Wiley, 1993, pp. 189-190—
[Frank Lloyd] Wright wanted every tooth in his mouth pulled, which could compare to storming the Great Wall of China single-handed, and in one sitting, and then to be fitted for false. This greatly impressed my dad [a dentist in Grand Rapids MI], as this was never done; it was too hard on the patient. Usually one or two were pulled at a time, four at the most, but Mr. Wright insisted, and so my dad pulled them as if he were plucking corn off a cob. Mr. Wright never flinched, but treated it as casually as if he'd come to have a hair trim.
See also: Roy R. Behrens, FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie (2016).
