Articles about Dr. Nathan F. Mossell

https://archives.upenn.edu/exhibits/penn-people/biography/nathan-francis-mossell/
Nathan Francis Mossell, the son of Aaron and Eliza Bowers Mossell, was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada on July 27, 1856. Nathan’s father, Aaron Mossell, was a grandson of enslaved people, with a great-grandfather known to have been brought from West Africa. His wife Eliza came from a free Black family that had been deported to Trinidad with other such families when she was a child; she and Aaron met after she returned to Baltimore. Aaron’s skill as a brickmaker enabled him to purchase a home for his wife, but as racial discrimination increased and the lack of educational opportunities became a roadblock for the aspirations Aaron and Eliza had for themselves and their children, Aaron quit his job and moved to Canada with his wife, two young sons and a daughter. Settling in Hamilton, Ontario in 1853, Aaron attended night school to become literate and used his savings to establish his own brick-making business.

During the Civil War, Aaron Mossell resettled his family, now including six children, in upstate New York. Here he established a successful brick manufacture business, employing laborers of all races and providing bricks for local schools and homes, his African Methodist Episcopal church, and eventually a hotel which he himself owned. Thus it was that Nathan Francis Mossell was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada on July 27, 1856. The 1870 census shows Aaron, sr., as a brick layer with of $2000 of real estate and of $300 of personal estate, living in Lockport, near Niagara, New York. Aaron’s wife Eliza is listed as keeping house. Both Aaron and Eliza are described by the census as having been born in Maryland 46 years earlier. The two eldest children in their household had also been born in Maryland: May, a twenty-two year old fancy needleworker, and Charles, a twenty-year old student at Lincoln University. The younger children (fourteen year old Nathan, twelve year old Alvarilla and six year old Aaron, jr.) had all been born in Canada and were in 1870 attending school in Lockportt; in fact they integrated the Lockport public schools and were responsible for the closing of a one room school house for “colored” children. Another son, falling between Charles and Nathan in age, had recently died and is not listed in the census.

Since Aaron Mossell, sr., at first had only enough resources to send his eldest son to college, Nathan’s schooling became irregular when he began working in his father’s brick yard at age nine. Nathan soon grew to be as strong and tall as most full-grown men; thus it was that, following the death of of his second-oldest brother, Nathan stopped going to school altogether to work full time for his father. In 1871, however, Nathan followed his brother Charles to Lincoln University where he finally had the chance to demonstrate his academic potential. After completing four years of preparatory school in three years, he went on to the complete four years in the college. At the time of his 1879 graduation from Lincoln with a Bachelor of Arts degree, Nathan Francis Mossell took second honors in his class and was awarded the Bradley Medal in Natural Science.

After graduating from Lincoln University, Nathan Mossell entered the Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania. At Penn he took second honors in his medical school class. After graduating in 1882, he became the most prominent of Penn’s first African American students. Upon graduating, Mossell was trained first by Dr. D. Hayes Agnew in the Out-Patient Surgical Clinic of the University Hospital. Because of the difficulties Blacks then encountered in securing internships in this country, Mossell then travelled to England to complete an internship at the Guy’s, Queens College and St. Thomas hospitals in London. In 1888, after his return to Philadelphia, Mossell was elected (after overcoming significant opposition on the basis of his race) to membership in the Philadelphia County Medical Society, making him the first African American physician to achieve this honor.

After opening his office at 924 Lombard Street, young Dr. Mossell quickly began to have an impact on Philadelphia medical practice and on the position of African Americans in the city and beyond. In August of 1895 he became the leading figure in the founding of the Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital and Training School – the second Black hospital in the United States, and one that would not only treat African American patients, but also offer interships to Black doctors and nursing training to Black women. Dr. Mossell’s former Penn professors (including Agnew, Tyson, Pepper, and Leidy) were among the initial contributors, and Eugene T. Hinson, M. D. 1898, was one of the hospital’s African American physicians. Since its establishment of a 15-bed facility in a house at 1512 Lombard Street, Douglass Hospital has had a history of supporting the African American community in Philadelphia. In 1909, a new building with 75 beds opened at 1534 Lombard Street. In 1948, two years after Mossell’s death, Douglass Hospital merged with another predominantly black hospital, Mercy, to create Mercy Douglass Hospital on Woodland Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets in West Philadelphia. This hospital continued its care of African American Philadelphians until its closing in 1973. Mossell worked for over thirty-five years as the hospital’s chief-of-staff and medical director, retiring in 1933. He continued his private medical practice, however, until shortly before his death in October of 1946, at the age of ninety.

Mossell’s influence was felt in other ways as well. He was a co-founder of the Philadelphia Academy of Medicine and Allied Sciences (an association for African Americans in medicine) in 1900, a founder and director of the Philadelphia branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1910, and a member of the Niagara Movement organized by W.E.B. DuBois in 1905. During the 1880s and 1890s Mossell was one of the first to pressure for the hiring of Black professors at his alma mater Lincoln University; from 1891 into the 1940s, he pushed for the integration of Girard College.He also worked with state representative Arthur Faucett to pass a bill banning exclusion of Blacks from university housing at Penn.

Nathan Mossell, his wife Gertrude and their two daughters, Mary C. and Florence Alma, lived at 1432 Lombard Street in Philadelphia. He had met Philadelphian Gertrude Bustill (1855-1948) while both were students at Lincoln University; her return to Philadelphia to teach school there and in Camden was a significant motivation in his decision to attend medical school at the University of Pennsylvania. They were married while he was still a medical student. After her marriage Gertrude Bustill Mossell worked as a professional writer and editor, publishing several books and working for such Philadelphia papers as the Press, Times, and Inquirer. After their children were born, she became active in civic causes, especially fund raising for Douglas Hospital and the establishment of the Southwest branch of the YWCA.

Nathan and Gertrude Mossell were part of remarkable extended families. Her great-grandfather had been a baker for George Washington’s army, her grandfather a Hicksite Quaker, and her sister became the mother of singer and actor Paul Robeson. Nathan’s older brother Charles studied theology in Boston after leaving Lincoln University, and later became a missionary in Haiti, where he was joined by Alvarilla Mossell, sister of Nathan and Charles. The older sister, Mary, married a teacher in Princeton, New Jersey. Nathan’s younger brother Aaron Albert Mossell would be the first African American to graduate from Penn’s Law School; although he served for a time as secretary and solicitor of Douglass Hospital and represented Philadelphia Blacks arrested in civil unrest, Aaron left Philadelphia and his family to eventually settle abroad in Wales. Aaron’s daughter (and Nathan’s niece) would be Sadie Tanner Mossell, later married to Raymond Alexander. When Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander earned her Ph.D. from Penn in 1921, she become the first Black person to obtain a Ph.D. in Economics in the United States. She was also the first African American woman to graduate from Penn’s Law School and the first to be admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar.

https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-blog/2017/february/in-his-own-words-nathan-francis-mossell

Thumbing (or rather, scrolling) through the typewritten notes that served as Nathan Francis Mossell’s autobiography, you recognize in the voice of his writing a depth of experience granted by a life packed with lifetimes: This is a man who saw it all, made his mark, and remained sharp as a tack throughout.It’s no surprise, when reading the clarity and even amusement—the quote above is directly followed by an admission that his decision to attend the School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania may also have been influenced by the Philadelphian presence of a young woman he wanted to marry—with which he recalls his 90 years, that he actively practiced medicine right up to the very end.

In 1879, Mossell became the first African-American to attend the medical school at the University of Pennsylvania. Three years later, he became the first African-American in its history to earn a medical degree. He’d go on to become the first American-American member of the Philadelphia County Medical Society, the founder of the NAACP’s Philadelphia Branch, the co-founder of the Philadelphia Academy of Medicine and Allied Sciences, the founder of Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital, and a noted civil rights activist.Mossell’s is a figure which looms large in Philadelphia medical history, not just for the barriers he broke but for those he helped others break throughout his life—and the tale of his rise to prominence in the field started right here in the fall of 1879.

Following his graduation from Lincoln University, Mossell visited with James Tyson, then Dean of the Medical Department at the University of Pennsylvania, to make a formal application for admission. Tyson told Mossell that the department had never admitted an African-American student—but added that, being a Quaker, he personally supported the idea of Mossell gaining entry. Additionally, as Harvard and Yale were accepting black students, he believed Penn should be similarly accommodating. When the final decision to admit Mossell came down, it was not without foreboding:

At a subsequent date, fixed by Dr. Tyson: I called and was informed that the faculty voted in my favor. I was told that I would have to take care of myself, that the faculty could not be my father and mother. I assured Dr. Tyson that he need not worry; that I was capable.

Predictably, a significant chunk of the student body reacted to Mossell’s involvement with their class in disgusting, hateful ways—but not everybody followed suit:

On October 15, 1879: I attended the opening lecture at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. I walked down the center aisle in the capacity-filled amphitheater to a seat very near the front. From both sides of the aisle I was accompanied by a storm of protest.

A student by whom I sat asked me why I did not get up and tell them, "go to hell". I replied that I was not disturbed the least bit; whereupon he jumped on the seat, turned his face to the crowd, and said in a ringing voice, "Go to hell! You act like a pack of D... fools." In response he got some applause, making me know that everyone had not participated in the first demonstration.Still, throughout his first year, Mossell wrote that he noticed a halo of space around him whenever he walked the halls or sat in a common area. In his first session at the school, the faculty received a message from the student body complaining about his even being there. He shrugged these incidents off, in part because of the support he received from some of the student body—but primarily because he knew he was a better student than almost every one of them. He challenged himself every step of the way, attending every lecture and watching every surgery or demonstration made available, reading ahead of the class so as to avoid having to take notes (which Mossell wrote allowed him to pay better attention). He made time for all of this by waking at four in the morning and going to bed at ten in the evening. The monumental effort Mossell put in was, he would write, a direct response to the hostilities he faced—including some from the school’s faculty:

Unofficially, I heard that one or more of the faculty voted against my admission, originally. This perturbed me because I was never able to determine which ones, if any, voted against my admission […] It is sufficient to say that I prepared myself so thoroughly on the subjects, taught by those whom I suspected; it would have been impossible for them to flunk me without committing rank injustice.

Following his first year, Mossell noticed a shift in the way he was treated by the students and faculty. He attributed this in part to his earning of a perfect 100 from R.A.F. Penrose, MD, a professor in Obstetrics and Pediatric Disease—a professor Mossell referred to as “the best teacher to whom I ever listened.” Whether it came from an appreciation for his academic prowess or the gradual acceptance of a shift in the school’s demographics, the respect shown to Mossell following the turbulence of his first year only grew—to the point where, upon graduating with honors, the reception he received was tremendous:

The conduct of the student body at our commencement was a marked difference from that at the time I entered Penn. When my name was called and I ascended the stage of the Academy of Music to receive my diploma, the students in the pit of the hall, greeted my name with almost deafening applause.

Mossell noted that his admission to and graduation from the University of Pennsylvania’s medical department received significant, widespread attention from the media of the time—especially from weekly African-American papers. His story spreading far and wide, he wrote, helped encourage other young black students in the area to make the leaps he made. The impact was made evident over the years:

There were about five colored physicians serving the city [64 years ago]. Three of these were regular graduates. Now there are more than two hundred practicing colored physicians.

Following graduation, Mossell trained under renowned surgeon David Hayes Agnew, MD—subject of the famous “Agnew Clinic” painting that currently hangs in the University of Pennsylvania’s John Morgan Building. He then went on to study abroad in London, perfecting his craft at Guy’s Hospital, Queen’s Hospital, and St. Thomas’s Hospital. “One of the first facts to strike me,” he wrote, “was that where education and job promotions are concerned […] prejudice against people of color is an unknown entity.” Hospitals in the London area, Mossell noted, housed many black American medical students who’d crossed the ocean for a fair chance at an education. Black physicians also filled some of the highest ranks in these hospitals—a stark contrast to the conditions back home. Seeing the opportunity to directly help other African-American youths become educated in medicine right here in Philadelphia, Mossell founded the Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital and Training School. It was the second black hospital in the United States, offering treatment to African-American patients and internships and training to black doctors and nurses. Though its focus on helping the black community was clear, Mossell wrote he had a second progressive goal in mind: “I was particular to explode the taboo against women physicians in hospital management,” he wrote.“Women physicians were associated with Douglass Hospital from its inception.” Douglass Hospital started as a 15-bed facility that eventually grew into a 75-bed facility, all on the 1500 block of Lombard Street. It would eventually go on to merge with another hospital geared toward the treatment of black Philadelphians—Mercy Hospital—to form Mercy Douglas Hospital, which carried on Mossell’s legacy until it finally closed its doors in 1973. Mossell himself served as his hospital’s Chief of Staff and Medical Director for more than 35 years, finally retiring in 1933. He kept his private practice going until late 1946, when he died at the age of 90.

Mossell also helped the black community beyond medicine and medical education: He was a prominent civil rights activist, fighting his entire adult life for the integration of local schools and hiring of qualified black professors. He was politically active, working with local elected officials to push a bill that prohibited the exclusion of black students from housing at the University of Pennsylvania. He also founded the Philadelphia chapter of the NAACP, and regularly opened his home to the individuals and machinery driving change in civil rights throughout the city.

In an effort to summarize how he found the motivation and time to accomplish everything he did as an arbiter of civil rights in Philadelphia while also serving as an accomplished physician, Mossell didn’t mince words:

One may wonder how a physician can find so much time to champion the cause of his people. I have been no less spared from the indignities of segregation and discrimination than the non-professional colored person. In waging a fight to help free others from the infringements of Jim Crowism, I also free.

The Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital and Training School

Inside one of the operating rooms at the Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital and Training School

https://archives.upenn.edu/collections/finding-aid/upt50m913/

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Nathan Francis Mossell was born in Hamilton, Canada, on July 27, 1856. His parents eventually settled in Lockport, New York circa 1865, where Nathan spent the majority of his childhood. In 1873, Mossell entered Lincoln University’s preparatory program, receiving a Bachelors degree in 1879. While at Lincoln, he met and courted his future wife, Gertrude Hicks Bustill(1855-1948) and after graduation, decided to pursue a medical education in Philadelphia, a city that served as the national center of American medical education during the nineteenth century.

Dr. Mossell serves as a pioneer among African American medical professionals in the late nineteenth century, paving an educational as well as professional path for both black men and women in Philadelphia as physicians and nurses. In 1879, Mossell became one of the first African Americans enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1882, Mossell was the first African American to receive a diploma from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School.Roughly a decade late, in 1895, Dr. Mossell established the first private black hospital in the city and the second in the United States, the Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital and Nurse Training School at 1512 Lombard Street. With few options available to black physicians during the 1880s, Douglass Hospital not only served as the first institution devoted to treating and healing black bodies in the city, but also symbolically represented one of the earliest efforts to initiate the rise of a respected, professional class of African American men and women. He served as Douglass Hospital’s Superintendent and Medical Director for over thirty-years, retiring in the early 1930s. Beyond his multiple accolades as a physician, Mossell was also a staunch civil rights crusader. His inability to accept what he commonly referred to as “caste prejudice” established him as a public figure above all else, who was determined to fight for equal rights for African Americans. His writings attest to his fervent opinions about discrimination against blacks and his efforts to change racist policies in the vicinity of Philadelphia, but also nationally through organizations such as the NAACP. Beginning in the early 1890s, Dr. Mossell fought for the desegregation of Girard College, a school originally founded to educate and support white orphans. Other efforts such as his participation in the Niagra Movement in 1905, reflected his opposition to how other Africa American uplift leaders approached and envisioned the social assimilation of black Americans by the early twentieth century. On October 27, 1946, he died at the age of ninety-one, leaving behind his wife and two daughters, Florence and Mary Mossell.

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SCOPE AND CONTENT

The Nathan Mossell Papers document his medical career and social leadership from the 1890s to 1940s and they include professional and public writings by Dr. Mossell, specifically on the Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital and socio-political issues facing African Americans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The collection also contains two scrapbooks with newspaper clippings on Douglass Memorial Hospital, hospital events and memorabilia, as well as correspondence between members of the Douglass Board of Managers and its Medical Director. Many documents are the original brochures and advertisements from hospital fundraisers as well as graduation ceremonies for the Nurse Training School.

Family materials include writings by Gertrude Bustill Mossell, as well as documents relating to the genealogical history of the Mossell-Bustill family. A family photo album contains forty-three portraits of members of the Bustill and Mossell families as well as close friends, dating from the 1860s through the 1880s.

https://archive.org/details/NathanFrancisMossell
Autobiography

DMU Timestamp: February 26, 2025 22:37