At the turn of the century dentists, like doctors, typically set up shop in the front room or parlor of their homes, as seen here. As the number of professional dentists increased and as cities became more populated, dentists-like their medical counterparts-relocated to cities and established their practice on the second floor of a downtown building. The typical items located in the turn-of-the-century dental office were a chair, cuspidor, wash bowl and basin (or sink depending on the availability of plumbing), and a foot powered dental drill. Although the S. S. White Dental Manufacturing Company put on the market the first electric-powered dental drill in 1872, the majority of dentists continued to use the foot driven drill well into the twentieth century because most offices in the country were not electrified. The lack of electricity also resulted in dental chairs being placed in front of a window for a light source-a tradition that continues today.

In the 1800s, most dental offices lacked not only electricity but plumbing as well. Patients rinsed their mouths and spat into an old-fashioned brass contrivance that was usually attached to the chair arm. Even when the spittoon was enclosed in an attractive cabinet, it still had to be emptied by hand. The first self-cleaning cuspidor (the Whitcomb Fountain Spittoon), was introduced in 1867, but was not widely used because it required modern plumbing. The reclining dental chair seen here, made by W. D. Allison Company, was one of the first all-metal dentist's chair. Although German physicist William Conrad Reontgen had developed the X-ray machine in 1895, and Dr. C. Edmund Keels developed it for dental uses shortly thereafter, dentists were very slow in adopting the remarkable new tool. In fact, as late as 1909, only twelve dentists in the United States used X-ray machines, which explains its absence from the office seen here.