Emeline_Roberts_Jones
Emeline Roberts Jones (1836–1916) was the first woman to practice dentistry in the United States.[1]
She married the dentist Daniel Jones when she was a teenager (at age 18) but she did not become his assistant until 1855.[2] Her husband believed that dentistry was not a suitable career for a woman. He thought the “frail and clumsy fingers” of women made them poor dentists.[3] However, she studied in secret and after Emeline showed him a two-quart jar of several hundred of his extracted teeth she had secretly filled he allowed her to assist him.[1][4]
After her husband's death in 1864 she continued to practice dentistry by herself, in eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island.[1][2] She often traveled with a portable dentistry chair.[5] From 1876 until her retirement in 1915 she had her own practice in New Haven, Connecticut.[1] It was one of the largest and most lucrative practices in Connecticut.[4] She had two children, a son and a daughter.[4]
Emeline served on the Woman’s Advisory Council of the World’s Columbian Dental Congress in 1893.[4] In 1912 she was elected to an honorary membership in the Connecticut State Dental Society, and in 1914 she was elected to an honorary membership in the National Dental Association.[4] She died in 1916 at age 80.[4] In 1994 she was posthumously inducted into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame.[1]