National Museum of Dentistry
Visit the museum to sink your teeth into fun for all ages with our interactive exhibits and mouthfuls of toothy history!
Welcome to the National Museum of Dentistry, or more formally, the Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry, the well-loved University of Maryland School of Dentistry museum.
First opened in 1996, this museum preserves and exhibits the history of dentistry in the United States and throughout the world. They celebrate the importance of healthy teeth and the unique history of the dental profession through their 40,000 object collection and expansive archive chronicling the development of professional dentistry. The collection is considered to be one of the largest and oldest collections in the world related to dentistry, and one of the reasons congress designated the museum as the official museum of the dental profession in the United States. Not only that, but its home, the University of Maryland School of Dentistry, is considered to be the premier institute for researching dental history in the entire United States.
Inside the museum, you will see the preeminent cultural repository of dental history knowledge, with various interactive and educational exhibits covering oral health. You will be able to 'find your smile' at The Smile Experience, learn about interesting traditions, folklore, and pop culture at Teeth in Popular Culture, and learn about how teeth were first found in a small mollusk's shell 420 million years ago at the Origins of Teeth. You will learn and see so much more in other exhibits such as the Prevention Gallery, MouthPower, History of Dentistry, Narwhal a Whale of a Tooth, and more.
There are plenty of educational resources and experiences available with School Tours, which work to 'combine history and oral health to inspire healthy attitudes, foster creativity, and promote critical thinking while exploring dentistry's exciting, and sometimes gross, past, present, and future.'
