Daniel Hale Williams: A Pioneering Surgeon

In this installment of ‘Profiles in History,’ we meet a young barber who became a surgeon and then a pioneer in the field.

Daniel Hale Williams founded Provident Hospital, which trained black nurses, cared for black patients, and advanced surgical knowledge during a time when blacks experienced institutional discrimination. Public Domain

Daniel Hale Williams (1856–1931) was the fifth of six children born to Daniel and Sarah Williams in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. His parents, being free black people, were firm abolitionists and devout Christians. They joined the National Equal Rights League when it was formed toward the end of the Civil War.

Shortly after the war, when Williams was 11, his father died of tuberculosis. The financial strain forced the family to move to Baltimore, where the young Williams was apprenticed with a shoemaker. After a year of tedious work that Williams found lonely and less than enjoyable, he left Baltimore to join his mother and her family in Rockford, Illinois.