wheatley provident hospital

Dr. John Edward Perry, an African American physician that was practicing in Columbia, Missouri, came to Kansas City in 1903. Dr. Perry established the Perry Sanitarium and Nurse operated as a private institution until 1913. Dr. Perry opened his sanitarium in part to give black physicians a place to practice and bring a level of professionalism to the field in Kansas City. 

While the small institution was a good beginning, a large community effort would be needed to make a significant community impact and provide a more permanent building. Therefore, in 1913, “The New Movement Association” was created by a group of community leaders and they took over the operations of the Perry Sanitarium and changed its name to the “Provident Hospital and Nurse Training Association.”

About the same time, Phyllis Wheatley organized another association and began raising funds to build a hospital for the African Americans of Kansas City. The two organizations, working toward the same goal, came to the attention of the Board of Public Welfare and a suggestion was made by that board that the two organizations unite. This suggestion did not readily meet the approval of either association, but after much discussion, both associations appointed committees to meet the Public Welfare Board. Following this conference, the two organizations united on April 8, 1914. A board of directors, consisting of members of both organizations, was elected and the name of the hospital was changed to Wheatley-Provident Hospital and Nurse Training Association under which name it was incorporated in March 1916. 

The group secured $21,000 to purchase a large stone building at 1826 Forest in 1917. The building had previously housed the St. Joseph Catholic School led by the Sisters of Charity. By the end of the World War I, the twenty room hospital sat squarely in the emerging Kansas City’s largest African American community.