18671776 Club
Harvard charters a dental school; Dean Keep makes dentistry a university science
The first university-affiliated dental program in the country will confer a new degree, the DMD, on graduates who once would have learned the trade by apprenticeship alone.
Before 1867, American dentists learned by apprenticeship, not university study, and the trade held little academic standing. On July 17, 1867, Harvard chartered a dental school affiliated with its medical faculty, the first of its kind in the country. Dean Nathan Cooley Keep led the effort, and the school began conferring a new degree, the DMD (Doctor of Dental Medicine). Harvard's early graduates included Robert Tanner Freeman, who earned his DMD in 1869…
