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John T. Codman

American dentist and writer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ136719872
Source-derived summary

John Thomas Codman (30 October 1826 – 14 December 1907) was an American dentist and writer. He was educated at Brook Farm and was the first to receive the degree of Doctor of Dental Medicine.

Career

Codman was born in Beacon Hill, Boston. A the age of seventeen he went to Brook Farm where he spent three years. At the farm he came into contact with George Ripley, George William Curtis, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Anderson Dana and Ralph Waldo Emerson. After the farm dissolved he started his professional career as a dentist in Boston. He was associated with Albert T. Emery at Temple Place in Boston in the early 1850s and in 1863 worked for Nathan Cooley Keep a dental pioneer of New England. In 1869 he entered Harvard Dental School where he graduated with the degree of Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD). He was the first to receive the degree of DMD, the title had been invented by Oliver Wendell Holmes.

He became Dean of Harvard Dental School.

Editorial summary

“John T. Codman” enters the record as american dentist and writer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what John, Codman and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1826, 1907, 1863, 1869—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1826-10-30. Its strongest next move is a source search built around John, Codman and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“John T. Codman” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, John, Codman and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q136719872. VIAF identifies the subject as 108569862. The Library of Congress control number is n95116419. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1826, 1907, 1863 and 1869.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “John T. Codman”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow John T. Codman primary sources, John T. Codman archive and John research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “John T. Codman”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from John T. Codman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.