View the Virtual Exhibition Here

Provident Hospital can claim a number of “firsts” in the history of American healthcare. It was the first private hospital in the state of Illinois to provide internship opportunities for black physicians and the first to establish a school of nursing to train black women. It was one of the first black hospitals to provide postgraduate courses and residences for black physicians and the first black hospital approved by the American College of Surgeons for full graduate training in surgery. Provident also offered an important forum, a proving ground for ideas about black self-determination and institutional survival. “Provident Hospital: A Living Legacy” at the International Museum of Surgical Science is the story of this landmark institution, told through rarely exhibited records, photographs and physical objects (including historic uniforms) from the Hospital’s history. Organized as a collaboration between the Provident Foundation and the International Museum of Surgical Science, “Provident Hospital: A Living Legacy” examines health history and social history as not only parallel but interdependent in this country.