page_title: Washington Sheffield
section_title: Inventions
hierarchical_section_title: Washington Sheffield / Inventions
caption_attribution_description: English: Dr. Sheffield’s Laboratory, circa 1893.
context_page_description: Washington Wentworth Sheffield was an American dental surgeon best known for inventing modern toothpaste. With the help of his son Lucius T. Sheffield, he was also the first to sell the paste in collapsible tubes. He also made important contributions to the fields of dentistry and dental surgery. He was considered one of the most skilled dentists in New England and the United States. In 1896, Colgate & Company began selling its own toothpaste that mimicked Sheffield's ready-made toothpaste and sold it in collapsible tubes like Sheffield.
  Later in life, he spent most of his time as treasurer and manager of his companies, the Sheffield Dentifrice Company and the International Tooth Crown Company, in New London, Connecticut.
context_section_description: Human beings recognized long ago the relationship between clean teeth and tooth decay and dental disease. The desire for clean teeth led individuals and later doctors and dentists to create teeth cleaning agents and tools. Tooth picks, toothbrushes and tooth powders were early inventions designed to satisfy the need to clean teeth. Cleaning agents for the teeth were often sold by doctors and early druggists. Figure 4 shows an early example ad for Rogers's Tooth Powder advertised in the Norwich Packet, May 6, 1800.
  Tooth powder was popular up to World War II. Sheffield joined many doctors and dentists in formulating his own tooth powder for use on his patients and later as another product for his dentifrice company, see Figure 5.
  Early in Sheffield's dental practice, he formulated a mouthwash which he used for years on his patients. When he and his son started the Sheffield Dentifrice Co. in 1880, they improved and reformulated that
  mouthwash and sold it as “Sheffield’s Elixir Balm” for the gums. Figure 6 shows early Sheffield products.
  Based on contemporary news reports at the time, Sheffield conceived of a ready-made tooth crème in the mid-1870s and was using it on his patients with great praise from them. To this crème, he added various extracts of mints that left a very pleasing taste in the mouth of his patients which caused them to request samples of the toothpaste.
  Sheffield shared his toothpaste formula with his son who was a dentistry student at Harvard during this period. The oldest surviving toothpaste record within the Sheffield Pharmaceuticals’ archives, the successor to the Sheffield Dentifrice Co., is a notebook formula of the son, L.T. Sheffield, from 1878. L.T. Sheffield's notebook formula for toothpaste is seen in Figure 7.
  In response to toothpaste demands from patients, Sheffield started a manufacturing company, in early 1880.  Initially, Sheffield was making toothpaste batches at his dental office at the corner of State Street and Green Street in New London, Connecticut. Demand grew rapidly and he was forced to build a laboratory and manufacturing facility behind his residence.
  The Sheffield Dentifrice Co. started producing his mouthwash and an entirely new product.  Sheffield and his son called this product “Dr. Sheffield’s Crème Angelique Dentifrice”. This product was the first toothpaste and it was sold in collapsible tubes. An illustration of that first toothpaste is seen in Figure 8.  Sheffield's son, now a Doctor of Dentistry, registered the trademark of that first toothpaste in 1881, see Figure 9.
  The first advertisement ever published for toothpaste appeared on March 12, 1881 in the New London Telegram, see Figure 10.
  The largest druggist in New London, at the time, was Nichols & Harris. The accounting ledgers from Nichols & Harris for the dates Dec. 25, 1880 to Oct. 26, 1881 have survived (Private Collection). Figure 12 show two of the earliest surviving records of the sale of the Sheffield's toothpaste in a tube.
  Figure 13 is a photograph of Sheffield's Laboratory, circa 1893. Modern day Sheffield Pharmaceuticals is located at that same site.
  On March 7, 1882, a newspaper reporter for the largest newspaper in New London visited Sheffield at his laboratory on Broad Street in New London, Connecticut. The report of that visit was published on March 8, 1882, in The New London Evening Telegram newspaper, see Figure 14. The reporter describes the innovations  L.T. Sheffield employed to get the “Crème Angelique” toothpaste into collapsible tubes.
  In 1883, Sheffield revised the original “Crème Angelique” toothpaste formula. He called the revised formula “Dr. Sheffield’s Crème Dentifrice” toothpaste.  This revised formula remained in production years after Dr. Sheffield's death in 1897. After 1900, the Sheffield Dentifrice Co. became a contract toothpaste manufacturer for many individuals and companies and has remained so to the present day.
  From 1880 to 1892, the Sheffield Dentifrice Co. purchased collapsible tubes to package the toothpaste. Beginning in 1892, the company started manufacturing its o
caption: Figure 13 –  Sheffield's Lab, circa 1893
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