Dentist and Social Reformer. Alfred Civilion Fones was an American dentist from Bridgeport, Connecticut. The term "dental hygiene" itself is attributed to Dr. Alfred Civilion Fones, a major creative force in the dental hygiene movement, and the founder of the Fones School of Dental Hygiene at the University of Bridgeport. As the first dental hygiene school in the world, the Fones School proudly bears his name. Alfred Civilion Fones was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1869, and graduated from the New York College of Dentistry in 1890. In 1906 he trained his chairside assistant (and his cousin), Irene E. Newman, to clean teeth and perform other preventive treatments on children, making her the world's first dental hygienist. Dr. Fones launched a program to make oral prophylactic treatment available to Bridgeport schoolchildren. The greatly reduced incidence of caries among these children gives impetus to the dental hygienist movement. At the same time, he established a school for dental hygienists. In 1913 Alfred C. Fones opens the Fones Clinic for Dental Hygienists in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the world's first oral hygiene school. The first classes took place in a garage behind his carriage-house office at 10 Washington Avenue in Bridgeport. The faculty included the deans of the dental schools of Pennsylvania and Harvard, seven professors from Yale and two from Columbia, plus noted practitioners from throughout the world. Twenty-seven students graduated in 1914 from the first class. Many went on to jobs with the Bridgeport school district, where they played a significant role in reducing dental caries in schoolchildren by 75%. Today, the Fones School of Dental Hygiene is located at the University of Bridgeport, not far from the grounds of the old carriage house. Dr. Fones, first to use the term "dental hygienist," today is known as the Father of Dental Hygiene.