Background
Norman William Kingsley was born on October 26, 1829 in Stockholm, New York, United States.
Norman William Kingsley was born on October 26, 1829 in Stockholm, New York, United States.
Kingsley received his early education in the public school of Poultney, Vermont, and at an academy in Troy, New York. After serving as a clerk in several stores in Elmira and Troy, in 1848 he paid for a course of instruction in dentistry with his uncle, Dr. A. W. Kingsley, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, who stipulated that the then secret process of making porcelain teeth was not to be included in the course; but young Kingsley soon mastered the process without assistance and otherwise demonstrated his native mechanical and artistic abilities.
In 1850 Kingsley began the practice of dentistry with B. C. Leffler in Owego, New York, where he shortly established an independent office. In 1852 he removed to New York City, practiced about a year in partnership with Solyman Brown and Samuel Lockwood, and then established himself independently at 858 Broadway. In 1858 he published the first of his many articles on the correction of irregularities of the teeth and thenceforth specialized largely in oral deformities.
Beginning in 1860, he perfected the gold obturator and artificial velum of soft rubber for cleft palate cases. His first articles on artificial vela and obturators appeared in 1863 and 1864. Kingsley visited Europe in 1864 and was cordially received by the medical and dental societies of Great Britain and France. Shortly afterward he invented and patented the first portable gas blowpipe for dentists' use. He was one of the founders of the New York College of Dentistry and served as its first dean and first professor of dental art and mechanism from 1866 to 1869. He originated several ingenious methods and appliances for regulating teeth and in 1880 published A Treatise on Oral Deformities as a Branch of Mechanical Surgery, in which he gave a comprehensive review of the scattered knowledge of the subject, together with descriptions of his own improvements. A German version was published at Leipzig in 1881. Kingsley wrote the long article on "Surgery of the Teeth and Adjacent Parts" in The International Encyclopaedia of Surgery, edited by John Ashhurst.
He had considerable reputation as a modeler of portrait-busts in clay, and he also worked in other media of art. In his youth, while a clerk at Elmira and Troy he was known locally as a clever engraver on copper and wood, and he did some creditable paintings in oil. When he removed to New York in 1852, he tried his hand at sculpture. In 1861 he modeled an idealized female head, called the "Evening Star. " His finest work in this line is a bust of Christ, made in 1868, a steel engraving of which appears as the frontispiece of Howard Crosby's Jesus, His Life and Work (1871). Kingsley's best-known portrait-bust was that of Whitelaw Reid, presented to the Lotos Club. He finally became interested in pyrography, in which art heated iron instruments were then employed; but he substituted a modification of the dentists' blowpipe, which he had invented, and used it successfully in making his "flame-paintings" on wood, including numerous copies of Rembrandt's portraits.
Kingsley made significant contributions to the early development of orthodontic treatments and cleft palate therapy. For his artificial teeth on gold plates, he received a gold medal from the world's fair at the Crystal Palace in 1853, and a gold medal from the Paris exposition of 1855. For his modification of the gold obturator and artificial velum of soft rubber, he received several medals and diplomas of merit. He wrote over 100 articles on Cleft Lip and Palate Rehabilitation. His work "A Treatise on Oral Deformities as a Branch of Mechanical Surgery" (1880) was the only standard textbook on orthodontia as well as oral deformities at his time.
(Excerpt from A Treatise on Oral Deformities as a Branch o...)
(Excerpt from Mechanism of Speech Articulate language is ...)
(Excerpt from Woman: An Oration, Delivered Before the Amer...)
(Excerpt from Dentistry Not a Specialty in Medicine: An Ad...)
Kingsley was an honorary member in dental and medical societies at home and abroad. In 1886 and 1887 he was president of the New York State Dental Society.
Kingsley was married, in 1850, to Alma W. Shepard. They had two daughters.
