-
Emeline Roberts Jones
Jones wanted to learn dentistry, but the newly formed dental colleges did not admit women. She studied anatomy and other subjects and practiced fillings and extractions on discarded teeth. Eventually her husband allowed her to join his dental practice in 1855. She was nationally recognized as the first woman dentist at the 1893 World’s Columbian Dental Congress. Photo courtesy of The New Haven Museum and Historical Society. -
Lucy Beaman Hobbs Taylor
Hobbs was determined to enter a profession where she could use her brain. The Ohio College of Dentistry refused to admit her but the dean, Jonathan Taft, taught her in his own office. Hobbs opened her own practice in Iowa. By 1865 the Iowa State Dental Society pressured the Ohio College to admit her as a student. In recognition of her years of practice the college only required her to attend one session before awarding her a DDS. Photo courtesy of Kansas State Historical Society. -
Jennie Kollock Hilton
Hilton was the first American woman to graduate from the University of Michigan’s dental program. Like many women of her day, Hilton had a larger agenda beyond her career. She and her sister, Florence Kollock, promoted equal rights for women and worked actively for women’s suffrage. Photo courtesy Sindecuse Museum of Dentistry, SMD 292.1881. -
Clara W. MacNaughton
Click here to read more images and read our profile of Clara MacNaughton.Photo courtesy of Sindecuse Museum of Dentistry, SMD 292.1885. -
Ida Gray Nelson, first African American woman dentist
Nelson graduated from the University of Michigan dental program during a time when few dental schools accepted minority candidates. As a high school student, Nelson worked in the dental office of Jonathan Taft in Cincinnati, Ohio. Taft, Dean of the University of Michigan’s dental school, encouraged her to apply to the program. She earned exemplary marks and opened her own practice in Chicago where she was a mentor and role-model for her patients. Photo Courtesy of the New York Public Library. -
Vida Latham
Click here to see more images and read our profile of Vida Latham. Photo courtesy of Loyola University Chicago Archives and Special Collections. -
Carrie Marsden Stewart earns the first advanced dental degree
In 1894, the University of Michigan established the first dental graduate (post-DDS) degree program, and Stewart was its first graduate. She earned her DDS at the University of Michigan in 1892, and spent the next year pursuing advanced work in biology, bacteriology, and physiology, and performing clinical work. In 1894, she was awarded a DDSc (Doctor of Dental Science) degree. Photo courtesy of the family of Carrie Marsden Stewart. -
Jesse Castle La Moreaux
Castle La Moreaux was the only woman in her 1896 graduating class at the University of Michigan College of Dental Surgery. Her first practice was at the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan. In 1897, she moved to Dallas and became the first women dentist to practice in Texas. Photo courtesy of Rockwall County Historical Foundation, SMD 838.2. -
M. Evangeline Jordon
Jordon was a pioneer in Pedodontics, the care and treatment of children’s teeth. She introduced techniques to help reduce children’s fear of the dentist, although some, like holding her hand over a child’s mouth until the child stopped screaming, would never be used today. She promoted the positive effect a good diet has on children’s teeth. Jordon went on to become the first president of the Federation of Women Dentists in 1921. Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection. -
Leonie von Zesch
Click here to see more photos and read our profile of von Zesch. Photo courtesy Jane G. Troutman Family Trust. -
Faith Sai So Leong
Leong was a Chinese immigrant who was adopted by an English teacher in San Francisco. She was educated, dexterous, and mechanically minded, so a cousin encouraged her to pursue dentistry. At the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Leong was the only woman in her class. She practiced in San Francisco’s Chinese-American community. Photo courtesy of Edwin Owyang, MD, and Eric Owyang, PharmD. -
Daisy McGuire
McGuire grew up helping her dentist father with patients, pulling her first tooth at age six. She travelled by horse and buggy, staying in homes while treating the families. She vulcanized dentures on their stoves or in their fireplaces. When the North Caroline State Board of Dental Examiners told McGuire she must go to school or quit dentistry, she enrolled in Southern Dental College and graduated with honors. Photo courtesy of the family of Daisy Z. McGuire. -
Spalding & Hayden start American Academy of Periodontology
Grace Rogers Spalding (left) graduated from the University of Michigan in 1904, and Gillette Hayden (right) graduated from Ohio Medical College in 1902. Both were early proponents of preventative dentistry. They also believed that periodontology, the care and treatment gums, is as important as caring for the teeth. The two women organized the American Academy of Periodontology and Hayden served as its first president in 1916. Photos courtesy of the American Academy of Periodontology. -
Vada Watson Somerville
Watson married John Somerville, who encouraged her to become a dentist and she became the first African-American woman to graduate from the University of Southern California School of Dentistry. They practiced together for 10 years until problems arose when many patients preferred her over him. She eventually left the practice to work towards improving Civil Rights in Los Angeles. She and her husband formed the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP. -
Sara Gdulin Krout
The first woman dentist in the US Navy was not from the United States. Krout earned a DDS in Latvia, before moving to Chicago and earning another DDS from the University of Illinois College of Dentistry in 1924. She circumvented the military’s restrictions on women dentists by joining the US Navy Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services (WAVES) as a lieutenant. Photo courtesy of Cliff Tabin. -
Helen E. Myers
Myers earned her DDS from Temple University. When Congress passed the Army Female Medical Department Act in 1949, and Myers became the first woman commissioned by the US Army Dental Crops. She provided dental services to Army troops in Italy and Japan. Photo courtesy of the National Archives, 11-SC-362058. -
Jane Slocum Hayward
Jane Slocum chose dentistry after helping her father in his dental office. When she married James Rogers Hayward while studying at the University of Michigan, they merged two families that included five generations of dentists dating back to 1890 on the Slocum side. Two of their children chose to work in dentistry, one as a dental hygienist. She graduated a year before he did, and worked as a clinical instructor in the school. Photo from Sindecuse Museum of Dentistry, SMD 34.78. -
Jeanne C. Sinkford
Click here to view more images and read our profile of Jeanne Sinkford. Photo courtesy Jeanne C. Sinkford, DDS. -
Sharon Brooks
Brooks earned her DDS, and then went on to earn an MS in Oral Diagnosis/Radiology in 1976, an MS in environmental and Industrial Health in 1984, and an MS in Clinical Research and Design and Statistical Analysis in 1989, all from the University of Michigan. Brooks’ interest in diagnosis led her to oral radiology, and she became an internationally known expert in Cone Beam Computer Tomography (CBCT). Photo courtesy of Sharon Brooks & UMSD. -
Marilyn Woolfolk
Woolfolk earned a MS in Microbiology in 1972, a DDS in 1978, and a Masters of Public Health in 1982. In the 1990s she served as U-M School of Dentistry Director of Student Affairs and then Assistant Dean for Student Services. She particularly enjoyed mentoring students and was the first African American woman to become a full professor at the U-M dental school in 2002. Photo courtesy of Marilyn Woolfolk & the University of Michigan. -
Rear Admiral Elaine C. Wagner
Wagner earned her DDS from the University of Indiana and specialized in pediatric dentistry before joining the Marine Corps in 1983. She spent 7 years practicing in California and went on to holder leadership positions in the Phillipines, Japan, Washington D.C., Maryland, Kuwait and New Hampshire. In 2010, she was appointed chief of the Navy Dental Corps, its highest position. Photo courtesy of the United States Navy.
