George Franklin Grant was the first African-American professor at Harvard. He was also a Boston dentist, and an inventor of a wooden golf tee.
A photographic print on tin of seven students at the Harvard Dental School; five identified individuals were graduates in 1881.Standing (l-r): Unidentified, unidentified, James Alfred Reilly, William Parker Cooke; seated (l-r): Otis Franklin Smith, Edmond Rosenthal, George Alfred Dennett.
William A. Hinton (1883-1959) was born on December 15, 1883 in Chicago, Illinois. His parents were both enslaved. He entered Harvard College in 1902 and graduated in 1905. Between undergrad and medical school, Hinton taught at Walden University in Nashville, Tennessee, the Agricultural and Mechanical College in Langston, Oklahoma, and at Meharry Medical College, and continued his own education during the summer at the University of Chicago. He entered Harvard Medical School in 1909 and completed his degree in 1912. Hinton was awarded the Hayden scholarship, reserved for African American students, but turned it down and competed and was awarded the Wigglesworth Scholarship.
William Augustus Hinton was an American bacteriologist, pathologist and educator. He was the first black professor in the history of Harvard University. A pioneer in the field of public health, Hinton developed a test for syphilis which, because of its accuracy, was used by the United States Public Health Service.
