Unknown, 16th century: In an early copper engraving by Lucas Van Leyden, a traveling dentist can be seen along with a woman acting as his assistant.
19th century
1852: In 1852, Amalia Assur became the first female dentist in Sweden; she was given special permission from the Royal Board of Health (Kongl. Sundhetskollegiets) to practice independently as a dentist, despite the fact that the profession was not legally opened to women in Sweden until 1861.
1855: Emeline Roberts Jones became the first woman to practice dentistry in the United States. She married the dentist Daniel Jones when she was a teenager, and became his assistant in 1855.
1866: Rosalie Fougelberg received a royal dispensation from Swedish King Charles XV and thus became the first woman in Sweden to officially practice dentistry since the profession had been legally opened to both genders in 1861.
1874: Fanny A. Rambarger became the second American woman to earn the degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery 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.
1881: Margaret Caro became the first woman to be listed on the Dentists' Register of New Zealand.
1886: Margarita Chorné y Salazar became the first female dentist in Mexico.
1890: Ida Gray Rollins became the first African-American woman to earn a dental degree in the United States, which she earned from the University of Michigan.
1892: The Women's Dental Association of the U.S. was founded in 1892 by Mary Stillwell-Kuesel with 12 charter members.
1895: Lilian Lindsay became the first licensed female dentist in Britain.
1898: Emma Gaudreau Casgrain became the first licensed female dentist in Canada.
20th century
1907: Frances Dorothy Gray became Australia’s first female Bachelor of Dental Science graduate from the Australian College of Dentistry, University of Melbourne, in 1907.
1921: During the annual meeting of the American Dental Association (ADA), 12 female dentists met in Milwaukee and formed the Federation of American Women Dentists, now known as the American Association of Women Dentists (AAWD). AAWD's first president, M. Evangeline Jordan, was one of the first to limit her practice to children and was a founder of pedodontics. She graduated from the University of California School of Dentistry in 1898.
1923: Anita Martin became the first woman inducted into the American dental honor society Omicron Kappa Upsilon.
1951: Helen E. Myers of Lancaster, Pa., a 1941 graduate of Temple University, was commissioned as the U.S. Army Dental Corps’ first female dental officer in 1951.
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.
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.