Women in dentistry

Timeline of Women in Dentistry

1523: The earliest known dental engraving, made by Lucas van Leyden in copper, depicts an itinerant dentist and his female assistant.

1852: In 1852, Amalia Assur became the first female dentist in Sweden; she was given special permission from the Royal Board of Health (Kongl. Sundhetskollegiets) to practice independently as a dentist, despite the fact that the profession was not legally opened to women in Sweden until 1861.

1855: Emeline Roberts Jones became the first woman to practice dentistry in the United States. She married the dentist Daniel Jones when she was a teenager, and became his assistant in 1855.

1866: Rosalie Fougelberg became Sweden's first female dentist after the profession was opened to both genders. In 1861, the dentist profession was legally opened to women in Sweden. Fougelberg tried twice to get her dentist's certificate; the second time, she was approved by the medical examiners but not by the dentistry representative. During her third try in 1866, the examination was supervised by the press. She was still turned down by the Collegium Medicum, but given a royal dispensation by the monarch, Charles XV of Sweden.

1866: Lucy Hobbs Taylor became the first woman to graduate from a dental college (Ohio Dental College).

1869: Henriette Hirschfeld-Tiburtius, born in Germany, became the first woman to take a full college course in dentistry, as Lucy Hobbs Taylor received credit for her time in dental practice before attending dental college. She later returned to Germany and became the first female dentist in Germany. She graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery in 1869.

1874: Fanny A. Rambarger became the second American woman to receive the degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery in 1874, when she graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery. She worked in Philadelphia and limited her practice to women and children only.

1886: Margarita Chorné y Salazar became the first female dentist in Mexico.

1890: Ida Gray Rollins became the first African-American woman to receive a dental degree in the United States.

1893: The [American] Women's Dental Association was founded in 1892 by Dr. Mary Stillwell-Kuesel with 12 charter members. Dr. Annie T. Focht, secretary, listed 32 members in her report on March 4, 1893, and stated: "the women interested in dentistry [met] in Philadelphia in March 1892, to organize a society by which they could strengthen themselves by trying to help one another." At monthly meetings of the association essayists presented scholarly dental papers. Their mailing list grew to include about 100 female dentists. No reports of the association exist after 1898.

1895: Lillian Lindsey became the first female dentist in Britain.

1898: Emma Gaudreau Casgrain earned her license to practice dentistry and thus became the first female dentist in Canada.

1916: Dr. Gillette Hayden became the first female president of the American Academy of Periodontology.

1920: Dr. Maude Tanner became the first recorded female delegate to the American Dental Association.

1921: During the annual meeting of the American Dental Organization (ADA), 12 female dentists met in Milwaukee and formed the Federation of American Women Dentists, now known as the American Association of Women Dentists (AAWD). AAWD's first president, Dr. M. Evangeline Jordan, was one of the first to limit her practice to children and was a founder of pedodontics. She graduated from the University of California School of Dentistry in 1898.

1923: Dr. Anita Martin became the first woman inducted into the American dental honor society Omicron Kappa Upsilon.

1933: Dr. Grace Rogers Spalding was appointed the first formal editor of the [American] Journal of Periodontology, a position she held until July 1949.

1951: Dr. Helen E. Myers of Lancaster, Pa., a 1941 graduate of Temple University, was commissioned as the U.S. Army Dental Corps’ first female dental officer in 1951.

1975: On July 1, 1975, Dr. Jeanne C. Sinkford became the first female dean of an American dental school when she was appointed the dean of Howard University, School of Dentistry.

1991: Dr. Geraldine Morrow became the first female president of the American Dental Association.

2001: Dr. Marjorie Jeffcoat became the first female editor of The Journal of the American Dental Association.

2003: Rear Admiral Carol I. Turner became the first female Chief of the U.S. Navy Dental Corps.

2005: Michele Aerden became the first female president of the FDI World Dental Federation.

2008: Dr. Beverly Largent, a pediatric dentist from Paducah, Ky., became the first female president of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry.

2008: Dr. Valerie Murrah became the first female president of the American Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology.

2009: Dr. Kathleen T. O'Loughlin, of Medford, Mass., became the first female executive director of the American Dental Association.