*** Welcome to piglix ***

Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander

Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander
Sadalex2.jpg
Sadie Tanner Mossell receiving Ph.d at the University of Pennsylvania
Born Sadie Tanner Mossell
January 2, 1898(1898-01-02)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died November 1, 1989(1989-11-01) (aged 91)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Alma mater University of Pennsylvania
Occupation Lawyer; first national president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated; Civil Rights activist
Spouse(s) Raymond Pace Alexander
Children Mary Elizabeth Alexander
Rae Pace Alexander
Parent(s) Aaron Albert Mossell II
Mary Louisa Tanner

Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander (January 2, 1898 – November 1, 1989), was the first African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in economics in the United States (1921), and the first woman to receive a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She was the first African-American woman to practice law in Pennsylvania. She was the first national president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, serving from 1919 to 1923.

In 1946 she was appointed to the President's Committee on Civil Rights established by Harry Truman. She was the first African-American woman appointed as Assistant City Solicitor for the City of Philadelphia. She and her husband were both active in civil rights. In 1952 she was appointed to the city's Commission on Human Relations, serving through 1968. She was President of John F. Kennedy Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (1963).

She was born as Sadie Tanner Mossell on January 2, 1898 in Philadelphia to Aaron Albert Mossell II and Mary Louisa Tanner (1867-?).

She attended high school in Washington, DC at the M Street School, now known as Dunbar High School, graduating in 1915. Mossell returned to Philadelphia to study at the School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1918. She pursued graduate work in economics, also at Penn, earning her master's in 1919. Awarded the Francis Sergeant Pepper fellowship, she was able to continue her studies and in 1921 became the second African-American woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D.

Finding it difficult to get work in Philadelphia, Mossell worked for the black-owned North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company in Durham, North Carolina for two years.


...
Wikipedia

...