There is a long history of women in dentistry in the United States.
Timeline
19th century
1855: Emeline Roberts Jones became the first woman to practice dentistry in the United States.[1] She married the dentist Daniel Jones when she was a teenager, and became his assistant in 1855.[2]
1874: Fanny A. Rambarger became the second American woman to earn the degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery, which she did 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.[2]
1890: Ida Rollins became the first African-American woman to earn a dental degree in the United States, which she earned from the University of Michigan.[3][6]
1892: The Women's Dental Association of the U.S. was founded in 1892 by Mary Stillwell-Kuesel with 12 charter members.[7]
20th century
1904-1905: Faith Sai So Leong, also called Sai So Yeong, born in China,[8] became the first Chinese-American woman to graduate from a school of dentistry and become a dentist in the United States.[9] In 1904 she became the first woman of any race to graduate from the College of Physicians and Surgeons (now the University of the PacificArthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry).[10] In 1905 she was awarded the Doctor of Dental Surgery from that school,[11] and after a trial of the State Board of Dental Examiners, which delayed the awarding of licenses, she was granted a dental license in August 1905.[12]
1909: Minnie Evangeline Jordon established the first dental practice in the United States devoted only to pediatric patients.[13]
1921: During the annual meeting of the American Dental Association (ADA), several female dentists met in Milwaukee and formed the Federation of American Women Dentists, now known as the American Association of Women Dentists (AAWD). Their first president was Minnie Evangeline Jordon.[7]
1923: Anita Martin became the first woman inducted into the national dental honor society (Omicron Kappa Upsilon).[15]
1951: Helen E. Myers of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a 1941 graduate of Temple University, was commissioned as the Army Dental Corps' first female dental officer in 1951.[3]
1975: On July 1, 1975, Jeanne Sinkford became the first female dean of an American dental school when she was appointed the dean of Howard University School of Dentistry.[3]
1977: The American Association of Dental Schools (founded in 1923 and renamed the American Dental Education Association in 2000) had Nancy Goorey as its first female president in 1977.[20]
^White, J. D.; McQuillen, John Hugh; Ziegler, George Jacob; White, James William; Kirk, Edward Cameron; Anthony, Lovick Pierce (1905). The Dental cosmos - Google Books. Retrieved 2012-08-04.
^White, J. D.; McQuillen, John Hugh; Ziegler, George Jacob; White, James William; Kirk, Edward Cameron; Anthony, Lovick Pierce (1905-01-01). The Dental Cosmos. S. S. White Dental Manufacturing Company.
^Loevy, H. T.; Kowitz, A. A. (Spring 2006). "M. Evangeline Jordon, Pioneer in Pedodontics". Journal of the History of Dentistry. 54 (1): 3–8. PMID16764231.