Timeline of Women in Dentistry

As in many professions of the earlier times, women had lower status in dentistry too and were forbidden to attend dentistry colleges and to practice dentistry. In time that changed and this is timeline of that:

• In 1852 Amalia Assur became the first female dentist in Sweden. Royal Board of Health (Kongl. Sundhetskollegiets) gave her a special permission to practice independently as a dentist because dentistry was not legally opened to women in Sweden at the time.
• Emeline Roberts Jones became the first woman to practice dentistry in the United States in 1855.
• In 1861 Sweden made a law which allowed women to practice dentistry. First woman to work as a dentist after this law was introduced was Rosalie Fougelberg who became a dentist in 1866.
• That same year (1866) Lucy Hobbs Taylor became the first woman to graduate from a dental college. She graduated from the Ohio Dental College.
• The first woman to take a full college course in dentistry graduated in 1869. Her name was Henriette Hirschfeld-Tiburtius.
• In 1874, Fanny A. Rambarger became the second American woman to earn the degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery.Her place of work was Philadelphia and she treated women and children only.
• Mexico got its first female dentist in 1886. Her name was Margarita Chorné y Salazar.

• The first African-American woman to earn a dental degree in the United States was Ida Gray Rollins. She earned it in 1890.
• In 1892 The Women's Dental Association of the U.S. was founded.
• In 1895 Lilian Lindsay became the first licensed female dentist in Britain.
• Emma Gaudreau Casgrain became the first Canada‘s licensed female dentist in 1898.
• M. Evangeline Jordan graduated in 1898. She was one of the first to limit her practice to children and was a founder of pedodontics.
• In 1920, Maude Tanner became the first recorded female delegate to the American Dental Association.
• Lilian Lindsay became the first female president of the British Dental Association in 1946.
• Helen E. Myers was commissioned as the first female dental officer of the U.S. Army Dental Corps’ in 1951.
• In 1991, the American Dental Association got its first female president. It was Geraldine Morrow.
• American National Dental Association got its own in 1997. Her name was Hazel J. Harper.
• In 2001 Marjorie Jeffcoat was appointed as an editor of The Journal of the American Dental Association. She was the first female editor that this journal had.
• Rear Admiral Carol I. Turner became the first female Chief of the U.S. Navy Dental Corps in 2003.
• In 2005, Michele Aerden became the first female president of the FDI World Dental Federation.
• The first female president of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry became Beverly Largent, a pediatric dentist in 2008.
• The first female president of the American Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology became Valerie Murrah on the same year.
• Academy of General Dentistry got its first female president in 2008 again and it was Paula Jones.
• Elected as the first female presidentof the Canadian Dental Association in 2008 was Deborah Stymiest.
• The first female executive director of the American Dental Association became Kathleen T. O'Loughlin in 2009.