Nathan francis mossell biography

Nathan Francis Mossell

Physician

(July 27, 1856 – October 27, 1946)

Nathan Francis Mossell was a pioneer physician who established the first black private hospital in Philadelphia, the Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital and Training School, that both treated African Americans and trained black nurses and doctors.

Uncle to All-Star Sadie Mossell Alexander, he was the first African American to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania medical school, and the first to join the Philadelphia County Medical Society.

Mossell was also an activist, founding the Philadelphia chapter of the NAACP, and joining W.E.B. DuBois’ Niagara Movement.

Mossell left his papers to Penn, including his autobiography in which he writes, “It is plain therefore, that prior to the Civil War, the so-called free colored people had few, if any, rights that the white man felt bound to respect. This mental attitude on his part, so hampered the colored people’s ideas of themselves that it still shrouds their efforts to attain a more inclusive legal franchise for themselves.”

EDUCATION:

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  Nathan Francis Mossell

  American physician (1856–1946)

  Nathan Francis Mossell (July 27, 1856 – October 27, 1946) was an American physician who was the first African-American graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1882. He did post-graduate training at hospitals in Philadelphia and London. In 1888, he was the first black physician elected as member of the Philadelphia County Medical Society in Pennsylvania. He was active in the NAACP and also helped found the Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital and Training School in West Philadelphia in 1895, which he led as chief-of-staff and medical director until he retired in 1933.^[1][2]Gertrude Bustill Mossell was his wife.

  Early life and education

  Mossell was born in Hamilton, Canada, in 1856, the fourth of six children. Both his parents, Eliza Bowers (1824 – ?) and Aaron Albert Mossell I (1824 – ?), were descended from freed slaves. According to Mossell's autobiography, his mother's stories of the discrimination and hardship their families faced strengthened her

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  Dr Nathan Francis Mossell

  When Dr Nathan Francis Mossell was born on 27 July 1856, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, his father, Aaron Albert Mossell, was 32 and his mother, Eliza A. Bowers, was 36. He married Gertrude Emily Hicks Bustill on 12 July 1880, in Princeton, Mercer, New Jersey, United States. They were the parents of at least 1 son and 3 daughters. He lived in Lockport, Niagara, New York, United States in 1875 and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States for about 30 years. He died on 27 October 1946, in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, at the age of 90, and was buried in Eden Cemetery, Collingdale, Delaware, Pennsylvania, United States.