Person Record
Metadata
Name |
Parker, Edgar R. R. "Painless" |
Notes |
Edgar R.R. "Painless" Parker (1871–1951) was a flamboyant street dentist and huckster. He attended Philadelphia Dental College which would become Temple University dental school, and began his practice as a street dentist in New York City. He went on to manage a combination traveling circus/dental clinic, promoting "painless dentistry". At one point he claimed to have pulled 357 teeth in one day, which he strung on a necklace. He legally changed his first name to "Painless", when he was accused of breaking a false advertisement law by claiming that his dentistry was truly painless. In the end, Parker ran about 30 West Coast dental offices, employing over 70 dentists, and grossing $3 million per year. Parker is mentioned in the song 'Orange Claw Hammer', by musician and poet Don Van Vliet. In appearance, Parker resembled Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame. He wore a top hat and a tooth necklace. He was a flamboyant promoter whose gimmicks included pulling 357 teeth in one day, which he strung as a necklace. He once operated a combination traveling circus/dental clinic. In the end, Parker operated 30 West Coast dental offices, employing 75 dentists and grossing $3 million a year. Edgar Randolf Rudolf Parker, who graduated with his class of just 3 other students from the Temple Dentistry School in 1892. Upon graduating, Edgar R. R. Parker moved back to his hometown in Canada to open his own dental practice. Parker was disappointed to discover that there just wasn’t any business. Even after having a large sign made for his office, he only received one patient; a tourist passing through with a toothache. Parker knew he was a good dentist and couldn’t stand the idea that his practice might never take off, so he decided to take matters into his own hands: he would become the P.T. Barnum of dentistry. Working in the 1890s during the height of ‘humbugs,’ ‘dime museums’, and rational amusements, Parker did what any natural-born-showman would do. He took a cue from the best and hired one of P.T. Barnam’s ex-managers to help him take his practice on the road. From his horse drawn office, amid his show girls and buglers, Parker promised that he would painlessly extract a rotten tooth for 50 cents. And if the extraction wasn’t painless, he would give the customer $5.00, the equivalent of roughly $115 today. Parker’s band actually served a three way purpose. First it drew a crowd. Second, it distracted the patient whose tooth was being pulled (along with a healthy cup of whiskey or an aqueous solution of cocaine he called “hydrocaine,”) and third, it drowned out any possible moans of pain emitted from a patient. Bucket of teeth (Michelle Enemark and Dylan Thuras).To help advertise his booming business of tooth pulling, a bucket full of teeth he had personally pulled sat by his feet as he lectured to the crowds on the importance of dental hygiene. Naturally like most showman-practitioners his shameless advertising was looked down upon in the medical community. Around 1915, Parker was ordered to stop advertising himself as “Painless Parker” under the accusation of possible false advertising. Unperturbed, Parker skirted around the issue by legally changing his first name to Painless. No one could tell him not to advertise under his own name. String of teeth (Michelle Enemark and Dylan Thuras).A blurb on his death in a 1952 Time Magazine’s said that his “ballyhooing techniques and easy professional ethics boomed his practice but outraged his colleagues.” Though Painless Parker’s blatant advertising pushed the boundaries of respectability and even legality, Parker believed in bringing oral education and affordable services to all walks of life, bringing the dentist to them rather than bringing them to the dentist, and cheap, (and at least usually) painless, tooth extractions. As the plaque at the museum states, “Much of what he championed – patient advocacy, increased access to dental care and advertising – has come to pass in the US.” Most of his colleagues detested Parker, and the American Dental Association labeled him "a menace to the dignity of the profession." Temple is forced to embrace the wily pitchman because he was a graduate of the Philadelphia Dental College, which became Temple's School of Dentistry. The museum is at the dental school, Broad and Allegheny. |
Publications |
"Marketing for Dentists Began with Painless Parker." Video Biography on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWm9A93p__s Books on Painless Parker: The Early Adventures of Painless Parker by Arden G. Christen & Peter M. Pronych Painless Parker: A Dental Renegade’s Fight to Make Advertising “Ethical” by Arden G. Christen & Peter M. Pronych |
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