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The Humble Toothpick

 

On this date in 1904, the Jamestown Weekly Alert carried an announcement by the Great Northern Railway regarding changes in the uniforms of its employees. Everyone from the head conductor to brakemen and porters would now be required to wear vests and white linen shirts with black ties.

Colored ties would not be permitted. Neither would colored shirts. Shoes had to be black leather and well-polished. Employees had to be clean shaven or have neatly trimmed beards. There would be no gaudy jewelry or heavy watch chains. Conductors, of course, had to carry watches, but their watch chains had to be lightweight and understated. No tobacco products would be permitted, and toothpicks were banned.

Toothpicks are nothing new. Some anthropologists assert that the toothpick is the earliest tool known to man. There is evidence of toothpick use by Australian aborigines, North American Indians, and ancient Egyptians. It has been suggested that much of the ancient toothpick use was unnecessary, and was cultural rather than practical.

Toothpicks gained popularity in the United States in the mid-1800s. The general practice was to whittle a new toothpick when one was needed. When wooden matches were common, it was easy to split them and trim them into toothpicks. Mass production of toothpicks began with entrepreneur Charles Forster of Boston, so people saw no need to buy something they could make themselves. To counter that, Forster paid young men to go into stores and ask for boxes of toothpicks. When they were told the store didn’t carry them, the phony customer put on a show of being upset. Forster would come in a few days later and the shopkeeper was happy to buy the toothpicks people were asking for. Forster employed the same trick for marketing to restaurants.

Soon the mass-produced toothpick was a status symbol. Young men would stand outside fancy restaurants picking their teeth as if they had just eaten there. In truth, they couldn’t afford it and were just putting on a show. It became very fashionable among men to have a toothpick hanging out of their mouth. Women soon picked up the habit, although it was considered somewhat risqué for them.

Toothpicks eventually came to be associated with a lower class of people. Youngsters we would today consider juvenile delinquents and minor criminals began lounging on street corners with toothpicks. Which brings us back to the Great Northern Railway as it traveled through North Dakota – banning employees from that disreputable use of toothpicks on the job.

Today’s Dakota Datebook was written by Carole Butcher
 

Sources:

Jamestown Weekly Alert. “Great Northern Uniforms.” Jamestown ND. 9 March 1904.

Slate. “The Marketing Genius Who Brought Us the Toothpick.” http://www.slate.com/articles/business_and_tech/design/2007/10/stick_figure.html Accessed 6 January 2018.

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