Brushing your teeth with a twig

Doing research for my forthcoming novel set in the 1850s, I learned that toothbrushes did exist back then, but they wouldn’t be mass produced in America until the 1880s. Wealthy people were more likely to have toothbrushes, perhaps with bone or wooden handles and horsehair or pig hair bristles. In fact, Napoleon’s toothbrush is on display in a London museum. It has a silver gilt handle with fancy engravings and horsehair bristles. But regular folks in rural areas of the United States continued t...