Harriett Gaston has been named the 2023 honoree for the WISE Women of Blair County Tribute in Education. Gaston is the coordinator of minority programs at Penn State Altoona. As the honoree for the Tribute in Education, she is recognized for her work as a community historian and with the county’s African American Heritage Festival.
ALTOONA, Pa. — Harriett Gaston, an academic adviser at Penn State Altoona, will give a lecture about surgeon Daniel Hale Williams at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 5, at the Hollidaysburg Area Public Library.
Williams was born in 1856 in Hollidaysburg where he lived until he was 9 years old. He graduated from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and in 1891 founded Provident Hospital in Chicago, the first interracial hospital in the United States. In 1893, he performed the first successful open-heart surgery.
Gaston will provide details on Williams’ life in Hollidaysburg and his contributions to the medical field.
