February 21, 2019
Dear Liberty,
People tend to gravitate to those who achieve widespread notoriety. Yet all too often, the ones that make the most impact are those who are forgotten to history. Lucy Hobbs Taylor broke a glass ceiling that opened the door for thousands of women to follow after her. She is the American Dream.
When Lucy was born on March 14, 1833, in Constable, New York, opportunities for women outside the home or the classroom were rare, but not unachievable. The seventh of ten children, Lucy grew up fast when both her mother and stepmother passed away by the time she was 12. The siblings pulled together to support the family with Lucy taking a position as a seamstress. When she completed her studies at Franklin Academy at age 16, Lucy began her first career.
As was typical for most unwed women in the mid-19th century, Lucy found employment as a schoolteacher in Brooklyn, Michigan. Boarding in a home with a doctor, she soon became interested in medicine. Lucy's passion led her to move south to Cincinnati, Ohio, where she applied to the Eclectic College of Medicine. Commonplace for 1859, her gender prevented her admission. However, a professor at the college agreed to privately tutor her.
Upon the professor's suggestion, Lucy moved to dentistry, finding another willing private teacher in the dean of the Ohio College of Dentistry, Jonathan Taft. As the school denied her admission as well, Lucy studied with Taft and then Dr. Samuel Warde before opening her own practice in 1861, as dentists did not need a degree at the time. (see Solid As A Rock). The following year, Lucy moved to Iowa where she built a thriving practice. The Iowa State Dental Society recognized her talent in dentistry, changing their By-laws and Constitution to allow women. They elected Lucy as a member in July of 1865, just months after the end of the Civil War. (see Civility War Ends) They even sent her to Chicago as a delegate in the American Dental Association convention.
The Society put pressure on the Ohio college, persuading them to finally admit Lucy to the senior class in November of 1865. Taking her private study and years of practice into consideration, they required only one class from Lucy. On February 21, 1866, Lucy Hobbs became the first female in the world to receive a Doctor of Dental Surgery degree, or DDS. Soon after, she addressed the Society, presenting the paper, “The Use of the Mallet,” another important first for a woman in the world of dentistry.
Following graduation, Lucy opened a practice in Chicago, Illinois, where she treated Civil War veteran James M. Taylor. She quickly fell in love with the railroad car painter. After the couple's marriage in 1867, James became an apprentice of Lucy in dentistry. Fleeing the bleak Chicago winters, the couple settled in Lawrence, Kansas. They opened a joint practice, later described as the "finest and most lucrative practice in Kansas,” where she became so successful people lovingly referred to her as “Dr. Lucy.”
A year following James' death in 1886, Lucy retired from dentistry, turning her focus to women’s rights with fellow Republicans. (see The Right’s Fight For Rights) That same year, champions of the movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage, published their third volume of History Of Woman Suffrage 1876-1885. In it, they included a section on Lucy, where she was described by Dean Taft.
FILLING THE AMERICAN DREAM
Lucy loved the West because of its freedom. She was able to make her own course in life and be, as she stated, independent. People like Lucy prove only independence brings prosperity. If she had stayed in New York or Chicago, she would have never advanced women’s opportunities in dentistry. It was because of her efforts in the West that by the turn of the century, nearly 1,000 women had entered the field.
Missing working herself, Lucy reopened her office located at 809 Vermont Street in 1895. She continued to practice in a limited capacity until her death on October 3, 1910. Lucy was laid to rest next to James at Oak Hill Cemetery in Lawrence, Kansas.
Liberty, with shows like The Handmaid’s Tale, Hollywood and the left have successfully convinced a generation that Republicans want to return America to a time of women not having a voice, a vote, or a job. Meanwhile, their new hero, New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants desperately to confiscate the independence Lucy prospered on by regulating everything. Her current objective is to terminate our use of fossil fuels in her “Green New Deal.” If the left succeeds in this endeavor, it would eliminate not only cars, but planes and all plastics. The deal proposes relying on trains instead, which ironically would progress America right back to the time of Dr. Lucy, when trains were paramount and cars and planes had not yet started giving freedom of travel. No longer would women be able to chart their own course, but be chained to the schedule enforced on them.
The truth is, there were many pioneers like Lucy, both black and white, who carved out new paths for minorities, displaying the true definition of feminism, civil rights, and equality. However, the left wants to suppress and bury these stories, especially since they were Republicans. (see The Right's Fight For Right and Civil Rights…And Wrongs) In addition to Stanton, Anthony, and Gage, other Republican Civil Rights leaders include Harriet Tubman (see America's Moses), Clara Barton (see Angel of the Battlefield), Frederick Douglass (see Reading, Writing, And Redemption), Hiram Rhodes Revels (see The Forgotten Senator), John S. Rock (see Solid As A Rock), Harriet Ann Jacobs (see The Great Escape), Mildred Jefferson (see Doctor Of The Unborn), Laura Ingalls Wilder (see Pioneer Girl) and libertarian Rose Wilder Lane. (see Liberty On The Prairie)
The America Dream is not necessarily a house in the suburbs with two cars in the driveway. Nor is it an apartment on Fifth Avenue. The American Dream is discovering what you want out of life and making it happen. Lucy was told ‘no’ multiple times, but she never let it stop her, proving she was just as good as any man in dentistry. As a result, thousands of women have been able to fulfill their own American Dream.
Those on the left have removed their masks, revealing they are indeed socialists. For them to succeed, they need victims, not victors. They need people with their hands out, not examples of those who are able to give a hand up. Therefore, progressives have purposely lost these histories in our classrooms and culture, removing important mentors for Americans today. They profess regulations are needed, as independence leads to inequality. Yet Lucy proves it was when the regulations were removed that true prosperity and freedom occurred.
Liberty, the only way to defeat the destructive and disastrous progressive ideology is to not allow them to make you a victim. Search for and find those that inspire and mentor you, like Lucy mentored her husband, proving that no government can give you the American Dream. You have to be it. Go kick through that glass ceiling and open the door for the next generation.
That’s my 2 cents.
Love,
Mom
“She was a woman of great energy and perseverance. Studious in her habits, modest and unassuming, she had the respect and kind regard of every member of the class and faculty. As an operator she was not surpassed by her associates. Her opinion was asked and her assistance sought in difficult cases almost daily by her fellow-students. And though the class of which she was a member was one of the largest ever in attendance, it excelled all previous ones in good order and decorum—a condition largely due to the presence of a lady. In the final examination she was second to none.”
“You ask my reason for entering the profession. It was to be independent…So far as I know, I was the first woman who had ever taken instruction of a private tutor…I graduated from the Ohio Dental College at Cincinnati in the spring of 1866—the first woman in the world to take a diploma from a dental college. I am a New-Yorker by birth, but I love my adopted country—the West. To it belongs the credit of making it possible for women to be recognized in the dental profession on equal terms with men.”
One of her professors wrote of her: "A better combination of perseverance and pluck is seldom, if ever, seen."
The authors asked Lucy for a statement also. In a letter to Matilda, she commented: