Dentistry and Embroidery in 1890s Utah: The Work of Kate D. Barron Buck

Abstract

Perhaps few women in late nineteenth-century Utah could better represent the bridging of the public and private spheres of life than Kate Diantha Barron Buck: a Salt Lake City dentist who won a blue ribbon and a bronze medal at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, as well as a blue ribbon at the Utah Territorial Fair in 1894, for her extraordinary silk embroidered map of the United States. Buck worked on her “Columbian Centennial Souvenir Map” for over a year, and the process of its creation is documented by the map itself and by items that have been preserved in tandem with the map.1 The fair encouraged the emergence of the well-rounded post-Victorian woman, one who was both an exemplary home keeper and who pursued a more public life through education and political societies.2 Buck, the creator of the map, was an excellent example of just such a woman, exceptionally skilled in fiber arts and working in a predominantly male field of dentistry. Her example demonstrates some of the challenges and rewards of being a successful public figure in the western United States.Kate Diantha Barron was born in 1859 in Wisconsin. Her mother, Lucretia Stratford, and her father, Alonzo Barron, a mechanic, had ten children.3 When Kate was in her late teens, she married Marion Newman Buck, a thirty-year old musician, in Mankato, Minnesota. By 1880, she was living in Lenox, Iowa, where she and her husband were listed as music teachers in the census.4 Kate had two children: Claude Enoch, born in Davis City, Iowa, in 1881, and Grace Elizabeth, born in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1888. During the 1880s, Kate and her husband both became traveling dentists who visited and worked in a number of midwestern and western states. By the 1890s, the family had moved to Salt Lake City, where they resided for ten years and ran a dental practice before moving to California, where they lived for the remainder of their lives.After their marriage, Marion worked as a church organist and a member of an orchestra, and he also gave music lessons. In 1884, newspapers give the first notice of a new collaboration between the Bucks, a dentist named George Stone and his wife, and Genette Weaverling, also a musician. The Bucks, the Stones, and Weaverling traveled through Kansas and Nebraska under the name of “Prof. Buck & Co's Happy Hours Imperial Organ and Musical Convention Troupe.” The set up was brilliant—while the Bucks and Weaverling gave music lessons and sold organs, George Stone fixed teeth and made dentures. The family performers offered concerts that served as advertisements for Stone, and because dentists were in such demand during this period, many towns they visited welcomed them.5Living the life of a traveling musician, wife, and mother—publicly, in the eye of so many people—could have its drawbacks. Certainly it must have been difficult for Kate Buck to move from town to town via train or wagon, carting all the necessities of caring for her husband and young son, along with musical supplies and Stone's dental equipment. Kate's marriage seems to have been display on least one occasion in 1884, when a newspaper reported a brief and public breach in the relationship. (A reconciliation occurred quickly, also reported by the paper). By the end of the year, Mrs. Stone had died, and the company of four—Stone, the Bucks, and Weaverling—formed the Happy Hour Dental Company. The company advertised itself as offering painless dental care through the use of electricity applied to the gums and “muriate of cocaine” to facilitate extractions.6 Cocaine muriate, or cocaine hydrochloride, was a powered substance used in a number of late-nineteenth-century medical applications, including eye surgeries.7 Any additional dental work that needed further care would be completed the next time Happy Hour was in town. Newspapers advertised vocal lessons and concerts given by the troupe, along with the various costs of their labor for tooth extractions, fillings, and dentures.8By 1885, newspaper advertisements identified all four members of Happy Hour—Marion and Kate Buck, George Stone, and Genette Weaverling—as dentists; it seems the music, still an integral part of their work, now shared equal booking with dentistry. The two women were described as both assisting the dentists (Marion Buck and George Stone) as well as being dentists in their own right, and advertisements asserted they were all “perfect ladies and gentlemen.”9 During the nineteenth century in the Midwest, it was not necessary for dentists to earn a formal degree in their field: they could become dentists by apprenticeship, which is what Marion, Kate, and Genette all seemed to have done under George Stone. Although Kate and Genette were at times referred to as “doctor,” this did not indicate an official dentistry license. In fact, the first license for a man to practice dentistry in Kansas was probably not issued until 1885; the first woman in Kansas was granted a dentist license in 1887.10Having women in the dental practice was seen as a benefit, for women dental assistants and dentists were thought to be particularly suited to working with women and children. As a Kansas newspaper from 1887 noted, “The ladies of this vicinity will have the privilege of having their dental work cared for by the ladies of the Happy Hour Dental Company.”11 Local writers often praised the ability of the two women; for example, an 1886 Nebraska paper declared the troupe to be “First Class Dentists in every particular. Especially Miss Weaverling we think she is the best gold Dentist in Nebraska. Mrs. Buck has few equals and no superior, in fact the Company is composed of the Finest Dentists.”12 The idea that female dentists were especially attuned to women and children as patients reflects a heated argument in the late nineteenth century about the presence of women in the field of dentistry. Debates raged in the dental journals about the relative abilities (or perceived lack of abilities) of women, with detractors claiming that women did not have the physical stamina or concentration necessary to work on adult men, arguing that they were more suited to the mouths of children and women.13 Kate Buck and Genette Weaverling turned gender to their advantage in their advertising, as a way to attract even more clients.During the late 1880s, the Happy Hour Dental Company expanded its geographical range throughout Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Nevada, Montana, and probably Arizona, where Kate gave birth to Grace in 1888. The Nevada papers in particular made much of the “Lady Dentists.”14 An Elko newspaper in 1888, for example, noted that “the only Lady Dentists in Nevada will be at the Gem Hotel.” As the advertisement emphasized, the women were “members of the Happy Hour Dental company and also members of the Kansas dental association” and therefore must be “excellent workmen.”15Just over one year later, in December 1889, the dentists were ready to settle down in Salt Lake City and open an office downtown.16 Happy Hour dentistry continued to practice in Utah throughout the 1890s, with their clinic located at 212 ½ State Street until they moved in 1896 to 46 ½ West Second South.17 The second “gentleman dentist,” a Dr. Ellis, left the practice in 1895, leaving the original three—the Bucks and Weaverling—who were all referred to as doctors in advertisements.18 Throughout the 1890s, the Happy Hour dentists readily promoted all their dental abilities and painless practices in the Salt Lake City newspapers. Although many of these notices did not mention gender, others called attention to the benefits of female dentists.19 During the 1890s, it is quite probable they still continued to travel as dentists.20What was life like for Kate Buck in the 1890s in Salt Lake City? She was an active dentist, with two children, who helped run a business and still traveled as a dentist. Her household included her family, Genette Weaverling, and other boarders. And during 1892–1893, Buck somehow found the time to envision and design her embroidered map; to write to the governor of each state, as well as the wife of a former president; and then to create the map with its more than 10,000 stitches. Buck achieved a certain amount of fame in Salt Lake City in 1893, since before shipping the map to the fair, Happy Hour displayed it at its State Street dental clinic, where large numbers of people reportedly gathered to admire her needlework.21The turn of the century saw the Bucks and Weaverling leave Utah for southern California. Around 1901, Kate Buck moved from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles County, most likely with Weaverling.22 Marion was still listed in the 1902 Salt Lake City directory, as the manager of a mining company.23 According to family records, Marion also moved to southern California and eventually bought or built a house the couple would call “Linger Longer.” In February 1903, a fire damaged much of the block where Happy Hour Dental Company was situated, but Happy Hour was one of a few businesses saved in the Central block.24In order to practice in California, Kate needed state certification, so she attended dental school at the University of Southern California, along with Genette Weaverling. Both women graduated in 1903, just one year after the first female graduate, Minnie Madeline Steinhilber.25 Kate became active in the Southern California Dental Association, for which she gave presentations and acted as treasurer. Throughout the early decades of the century, the Bucks, as well as Kate's mother, Lucretia, lived in Los Angeles County.26 Dentistry seemed to support much of the extended family circle. For many years Kate lived with her daughter, Grace, who also lived and worked as a dental assistant with Weaverling. Weaverling had married Benjamin Harbour in 1904 and she practiced as an orthodontist after her marriage. Kate and Marion's son Claude also became a dentist in California, and he appears to have worked alongside his mother. After Genette's husband died in 1930, she moved in with Kate until her death.27 When Kate died in 1942, her obituary highlighted her civic engagement, including her past presidency of the Los Angeles Professional Women's Club and her leadership in the local Community Farm Movement.28The life of Kate D. Barron Buck was one of remarkable achievement: as one of the early women dentists working in partnership with her husband and another woman dentist in Utah and then as one of the first women to graduate from dental school in California. Her achievements extended to her artistry with textiles, as she designed and completed an extraordinary embroidered map celebrating Utah as part of the United States. In creating her map of the states from fabric almost exclusively worn by women from prominent political families, Buck succeeded in emphasizing the important role of women in creating the country.The organizers of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago set out with a purpose to highlight the work of industrious Victorian women, and the fair featured a number of inventions and creations by women, both national and international. Many of these were exhibited in the Women's Building, as well the buildings for transportation, horticulture, and the individual states. The Women's Building was designed to celebrate women's achievements in a range of areas, such as art, literature, music, and science, and it included large assembly halls for meetings and lectures about suffrage, dress reform, women's rights to education, and so forth. The design and implementation of the building was governed by a board of “Lady Managers,” which was appointed by the all-male World's Columbian Commission; the board included a white female representative and alternate from every state and territory in the United States. The board had to rely on a network of state-level committees to organize their submissions but chose not to reject anything once it was sent, leading to a crowded display of approximately 80,000 objects, ranging from literary masterpieces to a dishwasher.29Women throughout Utah Territory submitted their agricultural products, handicrafts, and inventions to the state-level committee, the Territorial Board of Lady Managers, for inclusion in the Women's Building. During 1892 and early 1893, notices about the Territorial Board of Lady Managers and their acquisition of items for both the Women's Building and the Utah Building regularly appeared in local newspapers. For example, in March 1893, the women of Lehi contributed a small table made of onyx and silver that weighed over 1,000 pounds.30 Other submissions ranged from straw hats, mineral samples, and dishes made from Utah sulfur, to an “insect carving” from St. George—that is, “a block of wood, eaten by insects, that closely resembles fantastic carving.”31Utah provided the main contribution to the “silk and silk fabrics” division displayed in the Women's Building. Its Women of Utah: Silk exhibit of the territory was extremely popular and won a prize; the women created a miniature silk factory demonstrating how silk was made, from worm to dress.32 In addition, the thousands of people who entered the Women's Building passed under “pale cream silk curtains embroidered with Sego lilies” made by Utah women.33 This Utah industry attracted much positive attention. The historian Reid Neilson has argued that the fair gave Utahns an opportunity to “exhibit the best of Utah and Mormonism to a domestic and global audience,” presenting themselves to the world as “progressive Victorians” and “patriotic Americans” who were eager to take on the responsibilities of statehood.34 Buck's award-winning silk map exemplified such efforts to promote Utah as an industrious and patriotic member of the United States.Buck's embroidered map of the United States formed part of the “silk and silk fabrics” display in the Women's Building, but it was not connected with the Women of Utah: Silk exhibit of the territory. The map, which was displayed in an oak frame, hung in the Women's Building in the northeast stairway.35 The map features the United States, including Alaska in the upper-right-hand corner and Hawaii as represented by a bow on the flag in the upper-left corner. Black silk thread outlines the individual states. North of the states are sewn the words “Dominion of Canada,” and Mexico is labeled as well. A legend in the lower-right-hand corner features photographs printed on fabric, the process for which, called “diazytope,” had only been invented two years earlier in London (fig. 2). This legend appears to have been the last element added to the map, except for the frame.36 The legend features a photo of Buck on an octagonal piece of satin sewn on top of what appears to be another photograph on fabric of a document describing both the circumstances of its creation as well as the individual names of all the governors who contributed to the map. One name, William McKinley of Ohio, appears to have been added at some point in pen. Tiny print at the bottom of the legend includes specific details about individual states’ contributions.As the map legend asserts, Buck undertook and completed the map between February 22, 1892, and April 8, 1893, and it was “designed and entirely made by her.” One of the first steps she apparently took was to write to each state's governor, as well as to the president of the United States, to ask for a piece of fabric from which she could cut the pattern of their state. According to an explanatory document preserved with the map, “Mrs. Buck wrote to each governor, explaining her project and requesting a piece of silk from his wife's inaugural or other important dress. If the governor was a bachelor, he would send a piece of his favorite silk tie.”37 Buck enclosed a pattern of each state in her request so that governors would know how big or small a piece of fabric to send.As the explanatory document records, all the states responded, although “for some a second request was necessary.” The original letters from the governors’ offices that accompanied the swatches of fabric have been preserved, with the signatures of governors or their wives, daughters, and secretaries. Utah's territorial governor, Arthur Thomas, signed both his response to Buck and the bottom of the map's legend, which also includes the signature of the Salt Lake Tribune editor, C. C. Goodwin. A Salt Lake Tribune article identified the fabric sent by Thomas as coming from a dress of the governor's late wife, Henrietta Reinberg (fig. 3).38The map legend explains that the portions from New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Mississippi were made from the silk of governors’ ties. Two states, Washington and Iowa, came from the dresses of governors’ daughters, and the remainder came from the dresses of first ladies, with the exception of Tennessee; that fabric “was presented to [the governor] by a friend, Mrs. Hooper, and is a fragment of a dress worn by her aunt at the reception in honor of Lafayette when he visited America in 1824.” Newspaper articles offer a more specific location for that reception, at Andrew Jackson's Nashville Hermitage. In addition, a silk bow in the upper left corner holds a small flag in place; according to the legend, it “was contributed by Mrs. Caroline D. Kinney of the Hawaiian Islands, and is from a dress worn by Mrs. Schuyler at the Inauguration of Washington in 1784.” “Mrs. Schulyer” was probably the wife of Philip John Schulyer, major general in the Continental Army and then the first senator of New York. Because Indian Territory did not have a governor, Buck wrote to the wife of President Benjamin Harrison, Caroline (Carrie) Lavinia Scott, for a piece of fabric; the president's wife also supplied the silk for the District of Columbia.The map itself features the states and territories, with rivers, lakes, and mountains marked. Originally, Buck indicated water with light blue silk, but this has faded over time. Since the early 2000s, when an archivist cleaned and preserved the map, it has been displayed privately, in its original frame with museum-quality glass. The map is in extraordinarily good condition and all states are clearly visible, although the faded embroidery thread can be somewhat difficult to read in places. The states show a number of cities and geographic features; Buck reportedly made her pattern working from a three-by-five foot linen map.39 For example, Utah is delightfully detailed and shows the cities of Logan, Ogden, Salt Lake City, Provo, Panguitch, Manti, Huntington, and St. George, as well as rivers, mountains, and the Great Salt Lake, complete with Antelope (and smaller) islands (fig. 4).Wyoming contains several cities of note as well as impressive mountain chains, and Nevada's lakes and mountains are clearly visible when the pale cloth is examined closely (figs. 5 and 6).Midwestern and southern states are particularly intricate; see, for example, Illinois, whose detail might reflect Buck's own time in the Midwest or perhaps the growing importance of the region's cities (fig. 7).States in New England have the fewest named cities, either because they were the furthest from Buck's experience or because the smaller fabric squares were not as conducive to stitching words on. Looking for a state's individual cities and towns must have delighted and amused viewers from across the country at the world's fair, as they searched and found (or didn't find) their hometowns. The Evening Tribune of Grand Haven, Michigan, recorded that “In the Woman's Building at the World's Fair is a map made of bits of silk sent by the governors of the different states to Mrs. Kate D. Barron Buck. Grand Haven occupies a conspicuous spot on the map with Detroit and Grand Rapids and Saginaw, but Muskegon is not in it.”40 How disappointed Muskegon residents must have been!Buck's map received an award in the “Educational Department,” a category that included prizes for other items such as “Ninety volumes high school and class work” from the Salt Lake City public schools and “Charts, photos and manual training” from the agricultural college in Logan.41 After the fair ended in October 1893, Buck traveled to California at some point, for in April 1894, she copyrighted the map with the Library of Congress; this copyright was documented through a photograph, perhaps a copy of the souvenir photograph from the fair.42As the copyright notes that Buck was applying from San Francisco, it is possible she attended the Midwinter International Exposition there, which was held between January and July in the Golden State Park. It does not appear that Buck exhibited the map in California, for the official catalogue of the exposition does not name her.43Later in 1894, Buck sent souvenir photographs of the maps to the governors; the map itself was valued at a whopping $20,000.44 The Relief Society in Salt Lake City also reported that it received a souvenir photograph, so it is possible a copy of this early image exists in some archives in the state.45 The map was then exhibited at the Utah Territorial Fair in October 1894, where it won a blue ribbon (figs. 8, 9). The next public notice of the map did not occur for almost eighty years; then, in 1970, the San Diego Public Library displayed Buck's work in its central building.46 No public notice of the map seems to have been made after that date, and today it remains in the care of family members.The documents that are preserved with the map include elaborate patterns for individual states; these pen drawings, at least of the northeastern states, are much more detailed than what Buck sewed on the map. See, for example, the drawing of Massachusetts, which contains a number of cities that did not make it onto the silk map (fig. 10). As mentioned above, the small size of the New England states may have limited what Buck was able to include. Also with the documents are maps drawn in pen of Africa, Australia, and India, which suggests Buck might have originally planned to create a world map for the World's Columbian Exposition; these maps could also represent the beginnings of a second project, one that was never finished.Buck's silk embroidered map has much in common with late-nineteenth-century map quilts and indeed might have been inspired by them. Some of these quilts differentiated states by fabrics and were related to the crazy quilt, a popular style that used a variety of fabrics, including silk. For instance, the Utah Museum of Fine Art recently presented the Handstitched Worlds: The Cartography of Quilts, which was organized by the American Folk Art Museum in New York City and included a crazy quilt–inspired map of the United States (fig. 11).Map textile projects might have been popular in nineteenth-century schools, as shown by an 1891 quilt from Wisconsin that was stitched by a thirteen-year-old girl as a “class project.”47 Likewise, in 1893, a man in Tennessee had in his possession an heirloom made by his grandmother in 1819 when she was a fourteen-year-old girl at school; it was a “white silk quilt on which a map of North Carolina was worked with needle and thread. . . . The map is perfect, having counties, towns, rivers, sounds, etc. displayed. . . . The quilt will be taken to the world's fair.”48 This suggests that another building at the world's fair might have displayed a silk map project.As the American Folk Art Museum explains, map quilts (and by extension, other map textiles, such as Buck's embroidery) invite viewers to “trac[e] the paths of individual stories and experiences that illuminate larger historic events and cultural trends.”49 Women's fabric maps of the United States may have manifested a nationalistic urge to celebrate the country's growing size. Perhaps the concept of the Columbian exhibit encouraged Buck to see a map of the United States as a fitting celebration of Columbus's four hundredth anniversary. Moreover, by creating the map from the textiles of governors’ wives, Buck was emphasizing how women's roles and work made up the fabric of the United States. In doing this, however, it must be recognized that the lands of Indigenous people were symbolically formed from the clothing of white politicians and their families, who for generations had stolen the land from them.One goal of the Women's Building committee was to showcase women's role in industry and invention and to promote women's education and ability in the face of arguments that women were the weaker sex. In displaying Kate Buck's embroidered map and giving her an award, the fair judges recognized the skills and talent of a remarkable young wife, mother, dentist, artist, and musician, who excelled in both the private and public spheres.