Happy Women’s History Month

March is Women’s History Month, and to celebrate, we wanted to recognize a few women in dentistry that came before us!

Lucy Beaman Hobbs Taylor was the first woman to earn a Doctor of Dental Surgery degree back in 1866. She overcame many adversities such as becoming an orphan at age 12 to applying to schools that refused to admit women. As she wasn’t admitted into a school to learn about dentistry, she worked alongside Dr. Jonathan Taft, the dean of Ohio College of Dental Surgery, until opening her own dental practice in 1861. Because of her vast experience in the field, she graduated with a Doctor of Dental Surgery degree after taking only one class!

Ida Gray Nelson Rollins was the first African American female dentist. After school, she started working for Dr. Jonathan Taft and with her experience, was encouraged by Dr. Taft, to attend the University of Michigan’s School of Dentistry in 1887. Three years later in 1890, Dr. Rollins graduated and became the first African American female to earn a Doctorate in Dental Surgery.

Dr. Rollins inspired one of her patients, Olive Henderson, to get her Doctor of Dental Surgery degree and graduated from Northwestern University in 1890. She became Chicago’s second African American female dentist. 

Bringing it to the present day, there are 946 women that work for Park Dental. This is all possible due to these pioneering women from our past! We are greatly appreciative of all of the women that work for us day to day to provide the best possible patient care.