Before we were created equally: the story of Lucy Hobbs Taylor, DDS.
Dr. Lucy Hobbs Taylor is known as the first woman in the world to receive a dental degree. She grew up in a world that was not receptive to her desire to be a medical doctor or dentist. After being rejected from medical school due to her gender, she pursued dentistry. Again, she was rejected due to her gender. In the mid-nineteenth century dentistry was only beginning to become organized and regulated and it was acceptable for a dentist without a dental degree to open a practice. Reluctantly, she practiced without a license in various cities in the west for four years until the Iowa State Dental Society noticed her. The dental society voted her in as a member; it then influenced the Ohio Dental College to admit her as a student. The dental college acquiesced, and she graduated as Lucy Hobbs, DDS in 1866. In 1867 she married James Myrtle Taylor. Together, they practiced dentistry in Lawrence, Kansas for the rest of their lives. After Dr. Hobbs Taylor was accepted into the dental college other women followed. Nevertheless, the number of women in dentistry never was statistically significant until the late twentieth century.
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Baylor University, College of Dentistry, USA.
D006665:History of Dentistry; D049672:History, 19th Century; D012953:Societies, Dental / Q000266:history; D014481:United States