When was toothpick invented

Fashion of 17th century Europe nobility brought the rise of very extravagant gem encrusted metal toothpicks, accompanied with simpler and more easily manufactured porcupine quills and simple wooden sticks. Man who introduced us with the modern version of a toothpick was American inventor Charles Forster who in while working on a family farm in Brazil took notice of toothpicks that were created by local workmen.

He quickly devised a plan for machine manufacture, secured the patent rights and started selling his product across America. Very soon, use of industrial made toothpicks spread all across the world. It became not only an integral part of a meal, but a fashion statement which soon gave birth of the habit of chewing toothpick in the public which was greatly popularized in the books of Mark Twain. Every year hundreds of billion toothpicks are used by the people around the world, most notably around billion annually just in China, where use of toothpicks represent important after-meal ritual.

Toothpicks have a long history. Bronze toothpicks have been found in prehistoric graves, while examples made of wood or precious metals were common in ancient Greece and Rome. An article in the Dungog Chronicle in relates that Greek warrior and self-styled King of Sicily, Agathoclese, was poisoned by a quill handed to him for cleaning his teeth after dinner.

Gentlemen even wore them as ornaments on their hats. By the late 19 th century, the disposable wooden toothpick was the norm. Most of them were made in America , and most of those were made in the state of Maine. Dental forensics suggest that Neanderthals used rudimentary toothpicking tools. Archaeological records show that some of the earliest civilizations, from ancient Greece and Rome to China, used ornate toothpicks carved from ivory, bone and silver.

Eventually, these toothpicks found their way to the Portuguese colony of Brazil. At that time, any self-respecting fastidious gentleman could purchase a toothpick made of bone, quill, ivory, gold or silver, but an inexpensive disposable wooden toothpick that you could buy instead of whittling yourself was unheard of.

Unlike their hastily made hand-whittled counterparts, the mass-produced wooden toothpick would be of consistent shape and quality and available to the rich and poor alike. Why pay for something you can make yourself? Why use a wooden toothpick when you could use a much finer tool?

This would create the appearance of demand for the products. Forster organized a similar stunt in local shops, entering the store shortly after his actors stormed out and selling his wares wholesale. Together, they developed a process similar to that of mass producing shoe pegs — the wooden nail-shaped spikes that once held shoes together rather than stitching or glue — in order to mass produce toothpicks.

Forster partnered with mechanic Charles Freeman, who also had a background in shoe manufacturing, to perfect the toothpick design: round and pointed at both ends instead of flat as toothpicks often were at the time. Once Forster had his machines, he had to find suitable wood. He tried willow, but the wood was small, crooked and rare. He tried maple, but that had too much fiber and made for splintery toothpicks.

Originally, Forster had the wood shipped from Maine, but as his operation expanded, he decided to move closer to his raw materials. In , Forster opened his first toothpick mill in an old starch mill on Valley Brook in Strong. Forster initially employed 20 men and 12 women at his factory operations to work 10 hours a day, six days a week.