Dr. Daniel Hale Williams

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams was considered a pioneer in radical heart surgery and in the establishment of Provident Hospital in Chicago.

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams was born on January 18, 1856, in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. He was one of seven children. Growing up, at the age of 17, Williams worked part-time in a barbershop while he was living with one of his sisters. Williams received his preparatory and college education in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

He later took a two-year apprenticeship with Dr. Henry Palmer, who was a well known surgeon and former U.S Surgeon General. While many of the doctors during the 1800’s, began practicing after just two years of training, Daniel went on to graduate from Chicago Medical College ( later Northwestern Medical School), in 1883. He then proceeded to open his first office at 3034 South Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

In the late 1880’s Dr. Williams was appoint to the Illinois State Board of Health and was surgeon to the City Railway Company. He was the first black to hold such a position. During that time, hospitals refused to appoint Blacks to their staff or to train Black nurses. It was with his implacable will, did not allow that to deter him from his goal. So Dr. Williams pulled together a group of prestigious African-American and white doctors and founded Provident Hospital and Training School Association in 1891, the first interacial facility in the country, and started training programs for African-American Nurses and Interns.

On a hot July day in 1893, James Cornish had been the victim of a stabbing when he came into Dr. Williams’s hospital. Williams proceeed to save the man’s life opening his chest and suturing a wound to the pericardium. The man went onto live for another 20 years after that life saving surgery. By his determination,