Gift of Bernard D. Fischman in memory of Rose Stavisker Fischman

Id no. 2000.P.155, Photograph, English

Subject(s):  Health, Education, Dentistry

This is a photograph of Dr. Rose Stavisker in cap and gown at her graduation from Columbia University?s School of Dental and Oral surgery in 1905. Rose Stavisker (later, Fischman, b. 1887 ? d. 1941), was born in Poland to an Orthodox Jewish family. The family moved to New York in 1887. Pursuing higher education against great odds, Rose graduated from Columbia University?s School of Dental and Oral surgery in 1905. She was among a small group of the first women to graduate from a professional dentistry school in New York State. Dr. Stavisker first opened an office in the family apartment at 92 Rivington Street in New York?s Lower East Side. Rose then married in 1910, and had three children. After raising her children, Dr. Fischman returned to her profession in 1927, working at a free dental clinic. She also aided the growing number of refugees arriving in New York in the late 1930s from Nazi-threatened Europe.