ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a unique advertising campaign of nine advertisements produced by Lavoris, an American manufacturer of a popular mouthwash during the interwar period. As this chapter will demonstrate, the campaign was important for promoting and enforcing key messages around oral health and dentistry, with product promotion being a secondary objective. The advertisements detail the values of the profession at this point of nascence and how the culture of oral health as an intrinsic part of personal responsibility was established and promoted by the profession. This study gives new insight into the nature of dentistry’s relationship with society in this time period which still has relevance today. Due to the multi-modal nature of the advertisements, social semiotic analysis and discourse analysis were used to examine the illustrations and language of the texts respectively. The findings of this exploration are framed with reference to the theory of the social contract in dentistry. The discourses within the advertising seek to build legitimacy to the importance of oral health and the American dentist’s role in providing care and validate the status of the dentist as a highly respected and authoritative professional. This chapter is presented in several parts: an initial exploration of the dental profession’s relationship with industry advertising and methods for examination; a detailed analysis of the specific advertisements produced by Lavoris; and finally, a discussion of the significance of this campaign and the insights it gives into early dental culture, attitudes towards oral health and the position of dentists in society.
