A City Shaped
by Dr. Thomas Evans
It certainly may be strange to describe a city's legacy being shaped by a dentist, particularly in the case of a city like Philadelphia, whose history is so full of the country's leading dignitaries throughout the years, and whose evolution helped shape the United States. But while Benjamin Franklin and the Founding Fathers established our political foundations, Dr. Thomas Evans established our country's dental foundation. And he is still influencing that today.
Shaping a future in any formmeans more than establishing rules of conduct. One must take into consideration the corpus health as well, among other factors. Governments throughout history have been overturned because a rebel leader's raging toothache drove him on to open rebellion. While such is not the case in Philadelphia, Dr. Evans certainly was an influence in winning the War Between the States by keeping France from siding with the Confederacy. However, that part of his life is incidental to what he accomplished for dental health.
The Evans Building today
Dr. Evans Medals at the Penn Dental Medicine library
Dr. Evans Medals at the Penn Dental Medicine library
The Evans Dental Clinic main entrance to the operatories
The new Robert Schattner School of Dental Medicine, with the Evans Building up the street
Dental Alumni reception at the Schattner School of Dental Medicine
Dean Jeffcoat accepts Evans Plaque for the school
Penn Founder Ben Franklin
The Union League Club
The LSU School of Dentistry [9/2006] with water line marked
He was a researcher who developed vulcanized rubber dentures, invented a functioning articulator, and used nitrous oxide as an analgesia. He was a pathologist who investigated diseases and preserved many specimens for continued study.
Dr. Evans is certainly the first, if not the only American dentist to receive so many awards from foreign governments-- about 56 in all. And in the process, he received recognition for the United States' dental profession.
After his death in 1897, Dr. Evans' fortune went to the University of Pennsylvania to establish a dental school and a museum. The seed he planted has sprouted all over the Atlantic Coast. The Evans Building that housed the School of Dental Medicine was opened at the University of Pennsylvania 18 years after his death. It was considered the most advanced dental teaching facility in the nation. The Evans Building housed some of the brightest and most adept dental students in the country. That dental facility taught many hundreds of dentists who serviced millions of patients. Our own Past President Nicholas Saccone was one such alumnus.
The Evans Building has housed the Main Dental Clinic for 90 years. (Dr. Saccone lived in an apartment just to the left of this picture while he was attending school there.)
Now a newer, more modern dental facility has been built next to the Evans Building. But the Evans Dental Building is still in use as a dental library, a museum, and student office clinics. The museum is adorned with plaques and mementoes of history--one to Chapin Harris and Horace Hayden, a bust of Pierre Fauchard in the corner of the library, and a memorial plaque to Dr. Evans inscribed to the ''Dentist and Diplomat/Philanthropist and Patriot.'' The Trustees of the Evans Institute in turn donated the dental equipment to the U.S. Base Hospital #20 for service in France, where Dr. Evans had amassed his personal fortune.
On the Alumni Weekend, when we were there, the massive campus was afloat with blue and red helium balloons, agog with gowned graduates and their proud parents, senior alumni being driven around in golf carts, visitors having their picture taken in front of the Ben Franklin statue, and clusters of faire tents set up along Locust Walk for each of the dozens of colleges that make up the University of Pennsylvania.
The program for the events was two pages long, and the events themselves covered acres of history contained in the old red brick buildings. One could walk along the treecovered lane and imaginewhat loves were won and lost along that red brick avenue in front of the fraternity houses. Much history emerged from the youth studying there: Dr. Truman Brophy, founder of the Chicago College of Dental Surgery (Loyola University) walked that path along with DocHolliday, who became a dentist here after the Civil War. So many great men and women were born into adulthood here.
Dr. Thomas Evans helped to make all that happen. And PFA was there in Philadelphia to honor his memory and lifetime achievements.
Undoubtedly Dr. Evans had attended functions, dinners, and such at Philadelphia's Union League Club, founded in 1862.
And the University of Pennsylvania uses this historic setting for its many functions as well. The Dental Alumni Reception was in the Lincoln Hall that May evening with the various class reunions breaking out into their intimate dining salons for dinner. That morning and afternoon, the large Penn ROTC and NROTC units held their commissioning services there amid the many battle scene paintings and statues of prominent Civil War leaders.
Dean Marjorie Jeffcoat of the School of Dental Medicine personally welcomed the hundreds attending the dental reception. At the stroke of 7 on the old grandfather clock in the hallway, Penn's School of Dental Medicine Director of Annual Giving and Alumni Programs, Joshua Liss, introduced our Dr. Kevin Roach, PFA Hall of Fame Chairman, to the audience. Dr. Roach gave the essay on Dr. Evans and then proceeded to present the Evans Plaque to Dean Jeffcoat.
The Dean then addressed the gathering, giving her thanks to PFA for their consideration in bestowing such a high honor in the name of their beloved Dr. Thomas W. Evans.