Black History Month Fact

Celebrating Dr. George Grant, the second Black graduate of Harvard Dental School, inventor of the golf tee and Harvard University's first Black professor...

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From Harvard.edu

Harvard Dental School, founded in 1867, was located nearby where Massachusetts General Hospital stands today. Grant’s early dental experience got him in the door of the School and he was initially hired as a laboratory assistant. He was invited to attend the School and matriculated the following year. In 1870, he graduated with distinction and was subsequently hired as an assistant in the Department of Mechanical Dentistry in 1871. In 1884, he was elevated to the post of instructor in Treatment for Cleft Palate and Cognate Diseases, a faculty appointment, which made Grant the first Black professor at Harvard University and the nation’s first Black faculty member in dental education.

Grant was a skilled clinician who treated patients that included Harvard University President Charles Eliot. He specialized in treating patients with cleft palate, a congenital condition in which the bones and soft tissue in the roof of the mouth are not closed. Grant invented and patented a prosthetic device he called the oblate palate, worn by patients to help them speak and eat more normally.

“He went on to receive awards, he wrote papers on the cleft palate, he was an important person,” said Brian Swann, assistant professor of Oral Health Policy and Epidemiology. Swann said it is not surprising that someone like Grant who enjoyed “tinkering” and engineering new devices would go on to invent the wooden golf tee.