Lucy Hobbs Taylor

Born on March 14, 1833, in Constable, New York, Lucy B. Hobbs grew up with the dream of becoming a dentist. Because she was a woman, Hobbs was turned down by many schools.

She was finally accepted into the office of Dr. Samuel Wardle. Under his direction, Hobbs prepared for dentistry school, learning the skills of pulling teeth and making dentures. She again was rejected when she applied to the Ohio Dental College in March 1861. Not to be denied, Hobbs opened her own office in Cincinnati, Ohio, practiced dentistry there until after the Civil War.

Feeling confident with her dental skills, Taylor moved to northern Iowa and worked with other dentists. She was finally able to join the Iowa Dental Society in 1865. The doctors liked her work so much that they persuaded the American Dentists Association to allow her and other women to attend dental school.

Taylor entered the Ohio College of Dentistry in Cincinnati, Ohio, in November 1865, the second dental school in the world, and graduated as the world's first fully-trained woman dentist. After graduation, Hobbs opened a new practice in Chicago, where she married James M. Taylor on April 24, 1867. The couple moved to Lawrence, Kansas, and under his wife's direction, James
Taylor also learned dentistry. Together they built a large practice
in their new hometown, which they operated until his death in 1886.

Taylor discontinued the dental practice after her husband's death and became more active in women's rights issue. She died October 3, 1910.