Jessie G. Garnett

Jessie G. Garnett (1897-1976) was Boston's first black woman dentist, and the first black woman to graduate from the Tufts University School of Dental Medicine.

Early life and education

She was born in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, in 1897. Her mother was a seamstress; her father died when she was a young child. At age eleven, she moved with her mother, two older sisters, and younger brother to the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, where she attended Girls' High School. She then studied at Tufts University and the Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, graduating in 1919. She was the first black woman to graduate from the Tufts Dental School, and the only woman in her graduating class.

When she first enrolled in the dental school, she later recalled, the dean thought there must have been a mistake. After checking to make sure she had indeed been accepted, he warned her, "You'll have to find your own patients, you know," to which she replied, "That will be just fine with me."

Personal life and legacy

In 1920 she married Robert Charles Garnett, a Boston police officer at Station 5. The couple had two children and four grandchildren.

Garnett's former home and office at 80 Munroe Street was honored with a plaque by the Boston Heritage Guild in 2009, and is a stop on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.