People, Locations, Episodes

Gertrude Mossell, Journalist, and Educator born

Gertrude Mossell

*Gertrude Mossell was born on this date in 1855. She was a Black feminist, journalist, and educator.

She was born in Philadelphia; her aunt was Grace Bustill Douglass, and her great-grandfather, Cyrus Bustill, served as a baker in George Washington's troops. Both were abolitionists.

She worked as a teacher for several years before becoming a journalist in the early 1870s. She wrote columns and articles for many Black newspapers, including the Indianapolis World, the Philadelphia Echo, the Richmond Rankin Institute, Our Women and Children, and Woman's Era. She also wrote for white newspapers and magazines, including The Ladies' Home Journal, The Philadelphia Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Philadelphia Press.

In December 1885, Mossell began writing a column titled "The Woman's Department" for The New York Age, the leading Black newspaper in the United States. The first woman's column published in a Black newspaper, which advocated for equal rights for women, appeared in The Freeman from 1869 to 1886.

Mossell was also one of the first to recommend using newsboys to distribute papers in Black communities and to suggest establishing a Black newspaper syndicate similar to the Associated Press. Such an organization was established in 1919 with the founding of the Associated Negro Press. Gertrude Mossell died in Philadelphia on January 21, 1948.

to be a Journalist or Reporter