Jessie Gideon Garnett was known to smile. And she was quiet and gentle, tough and courageous. When she came to the Tufts School of Dental Medicine to begin her studies, the Dean assumed there must have been a mistake. “‘Here is my acceptance letter,’” was her reply.
She graduated in 1919 and opened a dental practice, the first Black woman dentist in Boston. The beginning was difficult. ”When I first started, patients came to the office and saw me. They asked for the dentist. ‘I’m the dentist,’” she would reply.
But with time her practice grew. She went on to treat patients for almost fifty years, retiring because of arthritis in her hands.
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Notes:
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Sources:
- “They Said Her Admittance Was a Mistake. And Yet, She Persisted.” Tufts Now, https://now.tufts.edu/2020/02/04/they-said-her-admittance-was-mistake-and-yet-she-persisted
- “Jessie G. Garnett.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessie_G._Garnett
- Hayden, Robert C. (1991). African-Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years. Boston Public Library. p. 145. ISBN 0890730830.
