National Historic Landmark

Williams, Dr. Daniel Hale, House

Chicago, Cook County, Illinois
Listed
May 14, 1975
Type
Building
Period
Industrial
Ref No.
75000655

About this property

The Daniel Hale Williams House is the former home of Dr. Daniel Hale Williams (1856-1931), one of the first major African American surgeons. Located at 445 East 42nd Street in the Grand Boulevard community area of Chicago Illinois, the building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1975. The Daniel Hale Williams House stands on the south side of 42nd Street on Chicago's South Side, about 1/2 block east of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. It is a modest 1+1⁄2-story wood-frame structure, with a roughly L-shaped plan covered by a gabled roof. The front facade has a single-story porch across it, sheltering the main entrance in the left bay, and a polygonal window bay in the right. In the gable above the bay there is a sash window topped by a gabled cornice. The house is not of particular architectural interest, and is estimated to have been built about 1905, when it was purchased by Daniel Hale Williams. Dr. Williams is best known as the first American doctor to perform what would later be known as open heart surgery. In 1893, he operated on a man who had received a stab wound to the heart. At the time the prevailing practice for dealing with direct wounds to the heart was to let the patient die, since it was considered impossible to operate directly on the heart. Williams was also influential in promoting the development of African-American medical practitioners. Since most white-controlled hospitals were reluctant to take on African-American interns, nurses, and other staff, Williams successfully established the Provident Hospital and Training School, the nation's first hospital and training school controlled by African-Americans. Under his leadership, it trained a generation of medical professionals to exacting standards, and is where he performed the above-described operation. National Register of Historic Places listings in South Side Chicago

Location

445 E. 42nd St.
Chicago, Cook County, Illinois
41.81876, -87.61531

Categories

HEALTH/MEDICINE
National Register nomination ›
Sources

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Nearby Historic Sites

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Nearby Battles

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Questions about this property

When was Williams, Dr. Daniel Hale, House listed on the National Register?

Williams, Dr. Daniel Hale, House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 14, 1975.

What type of historic resource is Williams, Dr. Daniel Hale, House?

Williams, Dr. Daniel Hale, House is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.

Is Williams, Dr. Daniel Hale, House a National Historic Landmark?

Yes. Williams, Dr. Daniel Hale, House has been designated a National Historic Landmark (NHL), the highest level of federal recognition for historic properties in the United States.

What is the period of significance for Williams, Dr. Daniel Hale, House?

The period of significance for Williams, Dr. Daniel Hale, House is recorded as the industrial era.

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