Lucy Hobbs Taylor is born - March 14th, 1833

On this day in 1833, American dentist and women’s rights activist Lucy Hobbs Taylor was born.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a
show that shines a light on the overlooked heroes of
everyday history. I'm Gay Bluesier, and today we're looking at

(00:20):
a lesson in persistence from doctor Lucy Hobbes Taylor, a
trailblazing dentist who proved that women can pull teeth with
the best of them. The day was March fourteenth, eighteen

(00:41):
thirty three American dentist and women's rights activist Lucy Hobbes
Taylor was born. She later became the first woman in
the country and likely in the world, to earn a
degree from dental school, opening doors for other women to
join the profession. Lucy Beaman Hobbs Taylor was her married name.

(01:02):
Was born in Constable, New York as the seventh of
ten children. As you might imagine, her parents had trouble
supporting such a large family, so when she was just
twelve years old, Lucy took a job as a seamstress.
While still in high school. She balanced her responsibilities with
a plum, earning her diploma in eighteen forty nine. Later

(01:23):
that year, she moved to Brooklyn, Michigan and began working
as a schoolteacher, a position she would hold for the
next ten years. During that time, Lucy rented a room
from a local physician and began gradually taking an interest
in his work and in the financial freedom it afforded.
With his encouragement, Lucy eventually decided to move to Cincinnati

(01:45):
in the hopes of attending the Eclectic Medical College. Unfortunately,
the school refused to admit a woman to its program.
The sexist policy was a major setback, as Lucy had
uprooted her whole life in pursuit of her new dream. Thankfully,
one of the teachers at the college, Professor Cleveland, recognized
the unfairness of the school's policy as well as Lucy's potential.

(02:09):
He began giving her private lessons and was quickly convinced
she had both the mind and the stomach to be
a good doctor. However, he also knew the era they
were living in and that Lucy, despite her ability, wouldn't
be welcome in the field anytime soon. With that in mind,
he suggested she try to become a dentist instead. For Lucy,

(02:30):
the main appeal of being a doctor was independence and
the chance to use her brain. Becoming a dentist would
still provide those advantages, and the barriers to entry would
likely be less severe than those of a medical school.
Lucy figured it was worth a shot, so she took
the professor's advice and applied to the Ohio College of
Dental Surgery, the second dental school in the entire country. Sadly,

(02:55):
Lucy was denied admission again because she was a woman,
and once again and she had to settle for private
lessons from a faculty member, the dean of the college,
in this case, Professor Jonathan Taft. A little while later,
she also apprenticed under a recent graduate of the school
named doctor Samuel Wardle. Reflecting on that experience years later,

(03:17):
Lucy wrote, quote, I commenced with doctor Samuel Wardle of Cincinnati,
finishing my studies in March eighteen sixty one. At that time,
the faculty of the Ohio Dental College would not permit
me to attend, and there was not a college in
the United States that would admit me, and no amount
of persuasion could change their minds. So far as I know,

(03:38):
I was the first woman in the field who had
ever taken instruction of a private tutor. By now you
may be wondering what was the point of all that
study if no school in the nation would ever grant
her a degree. The fact is very few practicing dentists
of the era actually had degrees. The ones who did
were able to charge more for their service and also

(04:00):
had more legal protections for their practice. But in those days,
working without a license was still the rule rather than
the exception. In the spring of eighteen sixty one, Lucy
became a renegade dentist herself when she opened her own
office right there in Cincinnati. It wasn't a prime location, though,
since the college town had no shortage of licensed dentists.

(04:22):
The following year, Lucy moved her practice to northern Iowa,
where there was far less competition. Over the next three years,
her practice flourished, becoming profitable and earning her a sterling
reputation as well. In fact, she was so successful that
even the Iowa State Dental Society took notice. In eighteen

(04:43):
sixty five, the group's president invited Lucy to attend their
annual convention. She nervously accepted, half expecting to be chewed
out by her colleagues for practicing without a license. To
her great relief, though the men gave her a warmer
welcome than she ever have expected. It turned out the
invitation wasn't a trick or an empty gesture either. At

(05:06):
that very meeting, the society's by laws were changed and
Lucy was welcomed as his first woman member. After six
years of struggle, she had finally won the recognition of
her peers. Lucy's professional standing continued to grow in the
months ahead. That summer, she was sent as an elected
delegate to the American Dental Convention held in Chicago, and

(05:28):
by the fall, her fellow Iowa dentists were demanding that
she'd be allowed to attend whichever dental school she wanted.
They even went so far as to issue an alltimatum
to all the colleges either admit Lucy as a student
or lose the support of the entire state society. With
the group's support and her own expertise to recommend her,

(05:50):
Lucy submitted a second application to the Ohio College of
Dentistry and was admitted as a student that same fall.
Better still, in recognition of her years of experience, the
college only required her to attend a single semester Lucy's
former private tutor, Professor Taft, was still the college dean
at the time. He later gave a glowing report of

(06:12):
her classroom performance, saying quote, she was a woman of
great energy and perseverance, Studious in her habits, modest and unassuming,
she had the respect and kind regard of every member
of the class and faculty. As an operator, she was
not surpassed by her associates. Her opinion was asked and
her assistants sought in difficult cases almost daily by her

(06:35):
fellow students, And though the class of which she was
a member was one of the largest ever in attendance,
in the final examination, she was second to none. Lucy
graduated just a few months later, on February twenty first,
eighteen sixty six, becoming the first woman in history to
earn a doctorate in dentistry. She later wrote of the

(06:56):
accomplishment quote, I am a New Yorker by birth, but
I love my adopted country, the West. To it belongs
the credit of making it possible for women to be
recognized in the dental profession on equal terms with men.
With her hard fought degree in hand, Lucy moved to
Chicago and started a new practice. Soon after, she fell

(07:18):
in love with one of her patients, a Civil War
veteran named James Myrtle Taylor. He had been working as
a railroad car painter, but after the two were married
in eighteen sixty seven, Lucy began to teach him dentistry
in her spare time. Later that year, the couple moved
to Laurence, Kansas, where they bought an empty lot and
built a combination house and office. Working side by side,

(07:41):
the husband wife dentist duo established what was later called
the finest and most lucrative practice in Kansas. A few
years later, the Tailors were able to buy a separate
home and move their practice into a larger commercial building downtown.
They continued to practice dentistry together until James's death in
eighteen eighty six. Lucy retired after his passing and focused

(08:05):
instead on the charity and social causes she had championed
for decades, most notably women's rights. In the end, though,
retirement just didn't suit her. In eighteen ninety five, Lucy
moved back into the home slash office building she had
built with her husband and reopened her practice. She continued
to see patients on a limited basis until her death

(08:28):
from a stroke on October third, nineteen ten, at the
age of seventy seven. By the time of her passing,
doctor Lucy Hobbs Taylor had been rightly hailed as a
pioneer of her profession. More than a thousand women had
already followed in her footsteps, and thousands more were primed
to do the same in the years ahead. That rapid

(08:48):
growth eventually led to the formation of the American Association
of Women Dentists in nineteen twenty one. That national organization
as still around a day and continues to rep present
the interests of women in the industry. The AAWD hasn't
forgotten its forbear either. Each year, the organization recognizes outstanding

(09:10):
women dentists with the Lucy Hobbs Taylor Award. Other tributes
to Taylor appear throughout the profession as well, including in
the realm of dental supplies. For instance, the Metalleida Company
designed and named a modern lab coade after Taylor, a
tribute to the woman who wore one first. I'm Gabelusier,

(09:32):
and hopefully you now know a little more about history
today than you did yesterday. If you'd like to keep
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way by writing to This Day at iHeartMedia dot com.

(09:53):
Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank
you for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow
for another Their Day in History class