Celebrating Black History Month

 

Black History Month: Daniel Hale Williams, M.D.

Daniel Hale Williams was born in 1858 in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. At the age of ten, his father died of tuberculosis. He became a shoemaker’s apprentice but realized he disliked the work. He returned to his family barbering business and recognized he wanted more education.

 

At the age of 20, Daniel became an apprentice to a former surgeon general for Wisconsin. After a surgical apprenticeship and graduating from Chicago Medical College, Daniel went into private practice in an integrated neighborhood. Soon after, he began teaching anatomy, served as a surgeon for the City Railway Company, and was eventually appointed to the state’s health board. 

 

Determined that Chicago should have a hospital where black and white doctors could study and black nurses could receive training, Daniel rallied for a hospital open to all races. After months of hard work, he opened Provident Hospital and Training School for Nurses in 1891, marking the country's first interracial hospital and nursing school.

 

In 1913, Daniel became the first African American to be inducted into the American College of Surgeons. He died in 1931, but his legacy as a pioneering physician and advocate for an African-American presence in medicine lives on.