Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander didn't just topple one hurdle. She smashed through several.
Alexander (1898 — 1989), a lawyer and civil rights leader, broke through racial and gender discrimination to reach seemingly impossible professional milestones as an African American woman in her day. Most notably, in 1921, Alexander became the first African American woman in the U.S. to earn a Ph.D. in economics.
A native of Philadelphia, Alexander made history at her alma mater the University of Pennsylvania multiple times. A few years after earning her Ph.D., in 1927 she became the first Black woman to both graduate from what is now the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. And then she gained admission to the Pennsylvania bar.
That same year she became the first Black woman to practice law in Pennsylvania. She became a joint partner in the law firm established by her husband, Raymond Pace Alexander. Alexander was also the first Black woman to be appointed assistant city solicitor for the City of Philadelphia. She held the position multiple times.
Break Through Barriers Like Sadie Alexander
How did Alexander break so many barriers?
She summed up the key to her success in a 1981 interview. The interviewer asked what advice Alexander would give young black women and men: "Don't let anything stop you. There will be times when you'll be disappointed, but you can't stop," Alexander said. "Make yourself the best that you can make out of what you are. The very best."
Alexander's drive wasn't about trying to be famous.
"My mother often told me that at a very young age, she was determined to succeed, not for fame or fortune, but to contribute to improving the lives of African Americans through the law and public service," Rae Alexander-Minter, the younger of Alexander's two daughters and a Ph.D. herself, said in a 2021 speech. Humility and passion for her work drove Alexander.
"I do not think she thought of herself as a leader. She was not interested in recognition. She did not see herself as a pioneer," Rae Alexander-Minter, told Investor's Business Daily in an interview. Also, "she was self-effacing. She did what she did because she loved the work and its mission."
Leave A Legacy Like Alexander
Alexander's words etched on a bench in her honor on Penn's campus serve as an inspiration to anyone who has questioned their potential or the value of an education.
"I concluded that I could not single-handedly make any changes in the position of women at Penn or of the people of my race and that it was best for me to secure an outstanding record and a solid education so that when I entered public life I would have the background to assume responsibility and leadership, — 1972 Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander," the inscription says.
Alexander's focus on achieving academic excellence helped her thrive at Penn.
Hanming Fang, chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, who earned his Ph.D. from Penn in 2000, studied Alexander's dissertation for her Ph.D. received in 1921. It looks at the expenditures of 100 African American households in Philadelphia at the turn of the century. The paper compares their monthly consumption patterns with white households, he says.
"I am an empirical microeconomist studying similar issues of racial disparities," Fang, the Joseph M. Cohen Term Professor of Economics at Penn, told Investor's Business Daily. "Her topic resonates with my own research interests in racial disparities and discrimination in a variety of settings including, policing, parole, health care and labor markets."
Overcome Odds Like Alexander
But the barriers and adversity Alexander faced to achieve her success were formidable.
"Not one woman spoke to me in class or when I passed (them) on the walks to College Hall or the library," Alexander said in a 1977 interview with oral historian Walter M. Phillips describing her first year as undergraduate in the School of Education at Penn. "Can you imagine looking for classrooms and asking persons (along) the way, only to find the same unresponsive person you asked for directions seated in the classroom, which you entered late because you could not find your way?"
She knew it took strength to keep going. "Such circumstances made a student either a dropout or a survivor so strong that she could not be overcome," she said.
Alexander remained undeterred. She finished her undergraduate studies. And she graduated with a B.S. in education in just three years in 1918 with honors. Alexander later earned a M.A. degree in 1919 prior to earning her economics Ph.D. and law degree.
Alexander still influences the economics department at Penn, says Fang.
"It is an inspirational story and the kind that makes us want to work harder to create an environment at Penn that is friendly, welcoming and nurturing to all graduate students and faculty members, who want to come to Penn to study, teach and do research in economics," Fang said. "We honor her as an inspiration to look up to."
Find A Way In The Workforce
After Alexander received her Ph.D. in economics, she was unable to find a job in her field because of discrimination.
Among the only jobs she could find was an assistant actuary at the Black-owned North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company from 1921 to 1923. Alexander then pursued the next phase of her education and career choice.
"By 1924, after a year spent at home without employment, Alexander decided to attend law school at the University of Pennsylvania because she did not want to be a homemaker, and more importantly, because she viewed the law as a means for advancing opportunities for African Americans," according to the 2021 book "Democracy, Race, and Justice: The Speeches and Writings of Sadie T.M. Alexander" edited by Nina Banks, Associate Professor of Economics, Bucknell University.
In 1927 Alexander became a joint partner in the law firm established by her husband, Raymond Pace Alexander. She met her future husband at Penn in 1917. He was a student at the Wharton School. She married him in 1923 after he received his law degree from Harvard University that year.
The Alexander law firm included six male Ivy League-trained, Black lawyers.
Their practice concentrated on advocating for those "largely marginalized people whose civil rights were violated," says Alexander-Minter. To accommodate clients, who worked in day service and could not come to their office, the Alexanders met with them in the family's home in North Philadelphia most weekday evenings. Her mother met with her clients in the library on the second floor. And her father would meet with clients in the dining room.
Use Hardship To Improve
Alexander's experiences overcoming discrimination helped her shine as a lawyer.
"My mother knew what adversity was," said Alexander-Minter. "She was extremely dignified and compassionate, particularly in defense of her clients and her stalwart defense of women's rights clients."
Alexander-Minter praises her mother for her accomplishments.
"I had the opportunity the last 25 years to look at my mother's life and the historical times in which she lived," said Alexander-Minter. "She was an ambitious self-possessed Victorian woman. I am amazed at what she could do with her life, given the constraints faced by women and Black women in particular."
Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander's Keys
- The first African American woman in the U.S. to earn a Ph.D. in economics. Also the first Black woman to both graduate from what is now the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and gain admission to the Pennsylvania bar.
- Overcame: Seemingly impenetrable barriers of racial and gender discrimination of her time.
- Lesson: "Don't let anything stop you. There will be times when you'll be disappointed, but you can't stop. Make yourself the best that you can make out of what you are. The very best."
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