{"id":21946,"date":"2018-10-17T16:39:53","date_gmt":"2018-10-17T20:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21946"},"modified":"2018-10-17T16:39:53","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T20:39:53","slug":"time-travellers-diary-the-first-canadian-woman-dentist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/time-travellers-diary-the-first-canadian-woman-dentist\/","title":{"rendered":"TIME TRAVELLER’S DIARY: The First Canadian Woman Dentist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Katerina von Holt
\nCo-op Student
\nAurora Museum & Archives<\/strong><\/p>\n

During the late 1800s it would be common to find anesthesia, vitalized air and baked porcelain inlays at a dentist\u2019s office. One thing that wasn\u2019t common was to have a woman as your dentist. At that time, all licensed dentists were men and it remained that way in Canada until 1893 when the first woman graduated from dental school. Who was this trailblazer that was successfully breaking down barriers and stereotypes? Well, she was an Auroran, of course!
\nBorn in 1865, Caroline Louise Josephine Irwin grew up in Aurora and attended the public school on Church Street that predated the 1886 building that exists today.
\nIn 1877, Josephine married John Wells, who became a qualified dentist in 1882. John\u2019s career as a dentist, took him and his family to many different parts of Ontario, including Meaford in 1887, Aurora that same year, and then Toronto in 1890.
\nDue to health issues, John had to end his career much earlier than expected. This posed a problem for the young family, how would they make a living? The answer was for Josephine to take on the family business of dentistry.
\nJosephine began studying informally under her husband’s guidance and soon enrolled in the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario to get formal accreditation.
\nIn October 1893, Josephine graduated from the college and became the first woman in Canada to practice as a Licentiate in Dental Surgery. During the beginning of her career, Josephine treated Aurorans on a weekly or biweekly basis. She also travelled to Maple and Stouffville to offer her dentistry services \u2013 all well caring for her own young children.
\nIt did not take long before Josephine wanted to upgrade her credentials.
\nIn 1899, she wrote the exams required to become a Doctor of Dental Surgery. This year also marked the end of her service in Aurora as she began working for provincial public institutions. In this new position, Josephine provided dental care for people in prisons, asylums and schools all while maintaining a private practice in Toronto.
\nIn 1918, Josephine became the manager of dental care in all provincial hospitals and schools \u2013 a position she continued in until her retirement in 1928.
\nTo learn more about Josephine\u2019s story please read, An Aurora ABC: Stories from Aurora\u2019s Forgotten Past by Jacqueline Stuart.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Katerina von Holt Co-op Student Aurora Museum & Archives During the late 1800s it would be common to find anesthesia, vitalized air and baked porcelain inlays at a dentist\u2019s office. One thing that wasn\u2019t common was to have a woman as your dentist. At that time, all licensed dentists were men and it remained that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5HY","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 04:17:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21946\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}