Emeline Roberts Jones
|  | ||||||||||
For More information please visit: | |||||||||||
Audio Archives: | |||||||||||
| First female dentist in America.
Dr. George Baker, editor of Dental Times in 1865, concluded that "the very form and structure of woman unfits her for its (dental surgery) duties." Unbeknownst to the good doctor, Emeline Jones had tended to the teeth of numerous residents of Northeastern Connecticut in the years prior to the Civil War. At the age of 18 she married Dr. Daniel Jones, who had acquired his knowledge of dentistry from Dr. R. B. Curtiss in Winsted. There were as yet only a handful of dental colleges in the country. Most newcomers trained for their profession by studying with experienced practitioners. When Emeline displayed an interest in her husband's profession, he was not receptive to the idea of his wife's participating in his work. Dentistry at that time was believed to be no occupation for "frail and clumsy fingers." Not to be denied, Emeline pursued her interest in dentistry clandestinely. It was only after she had secretly filled and extracted several hundred teeth and demonstrated her skill and ability that her husband finally permitted her to work on some of his patients. In 1859, Emeline became her husband's partner in his dental practice. At the death of her husband in 1864, she carried on the dental practice alone, traveling to eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island and carrying with her a portable dentist's chair. After a number of years in northeastern Connecticut, Emeline Jones moved to New Haven, where she continued her practice until 1915. All told, her career spanned six decades. She was elected to the Connecticut State Dental Society in 1883 and in 1914 was made an honorary member of the National Dental Association. | |||||||||||
|