Ann Preston: Pioneer of Medical Education and Women’s Rights

One of the earliest supporters of a woman’s tight to a medical education was Ann Preston. In the late 1840s, she was refused admission to the famous medical schools of Philadelphia because of her sex, yet she persevered in her efforts to obtain medical training, earned her M.D. degree and spent the rest of her life working for the improvement of women’s medical education and for the...
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A Salute to the Bicentennial of the Keystone State

The current Bicentennial celebration commemorates not the birth of the United States, but the proclama­tion of thirteen British-American colonies that were “free and independent states” as of July 4, 17.76. When they formed a loose compact in 1761, their articles of confederation declared that “each state retains its sover­eignty, freedom and independence.” The...
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David McNeely Stauffer’s Little Known Legacy to Lancaster

“Nothing con­tributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose – a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.” A passage from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s 1818 clas­sic Frankenstein may be a most unlikely source, but these words characterize the equally unlikely life of Lancaster County native David McNeely Stauffer (1845-1913). Born in Richland...
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Daniel Hale Williams

Daniel Hale Williams was born January 18, 1856, the son of Daniel and Sarah Ann Price Williams, in Hollidaysburg, Blair County. When his father died in 1867, his mother, who moved to Annapolis, Maryland, arranged an apprenticeship as a shoemaker for her son. Dissatisfied with shoemaking, Williams later settled in Janesville, Wisconsin, along with his sister Sally. He found work at Harry...
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