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William Carlos Williams actually was primarily a physician, in which occupation, incidentally, he grew to admire women's courage throughout childbirth. He went to University in Pennsylvania, where he met his lifelong friends Pound, and Doolittle. After interning in Germany, he set up his practice in his native, Rutheford, New Jersey.
In addition to his successful medical career, (he later became head pediatrician at the General Hospital in the nearby town of Paterson), he came to be known as the greatest American poet since Whitman. His literary friend, Pound, differed from him in that Williams had an aspiration to create an American poetry through colorations, rhythms, and prose by using American speech, experience, and thought. In addition, largely due to his respect for women's courage that he experience in his medical workings, he depicted a realistic (fair) image of females. Living from September 17,1883 to March 4,1963, this was significant.
Williams was born the son to William George Williams and Raquel Hélène Hoheb. His father was a wealthy, prominent businessman, and his mother was Puerto Rican. He participated in school in France and Switzerland, and finally graduated in New York. He began at the University of Pennsylvania in the dental school before transferring to the medical school. He spoke French, Spanish, and English fluently, and was interested in painting, as his mother had a liking for art.
He married Florence Herman, and had two sons with her. Though he worked at his medical practice, he was much more passionate about the arts. He was itching to be involved with the European art culture buzzing with life. During this time, early 1900's, he wrote material reflecting his Spanish and Puerto Rican roots, but when his father died in 1918, he began a fairly avid quest for the true feeling of belonging to his home country, the United States of America. He continued to experiment with many things. He wrote plays, romance novels, comedies, prose, short, nearly meaningless poems, and took a year long sabbatical.