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Papers, 1817- 2005 (bulk, 1925-1983).
University Archives UPT50 A374
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- Format:
- Archive
- Author/Creator:
- Alexander family.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Alexander-Minter, Rae, 1937-.
- Alexander-Minter, Rae.
- Brown, Mary Elizabeth Alexander, 1934-.
- Brown, Mary Elizabeth Alexander.
- Mossell, Nathan Francis, 1856-1946.
- Mossell, Nathan Francis.
- Tanner, Benj. T. (Benjamin Tucker), 1835-1923.
- Tanner, Benj. T.
- Tanner, Henry Ossawa, 1859-1937.
- Tanner, Henry Ossawa.
- Philadelphia (Pa.)--Social life and customs.
- Philadelphia (Pa.).
- Philadelphia (Pa.)--History.
- Philadelphia (Pa.)--Politics and government--1865-.
- African American women--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia.
- African American women.
- African Americans--Civil Rights--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia.
- African Americans.
- African Americans--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--History--1877-1964.
- African Americans--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--History--1964-.
- African Americans--Segregation--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia.
- African Americans--Professional education--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia.
- African Americans--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--Social life and customs.
- Attorney and client--United States.
- Attorney and client.
- Practice of law--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia.
- Practice of law.
- Trenton Six Trial, Trenton, N.J., 1948-1951.
- Trials (Murder)--New Jersey.
- Trials (Murder).
- Trials (Murder)--Pennsylvania.
- African Methodist Episcopal Church--Trials, ligitation, etc.
- African Methodist Episcopal Church.
- Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.
- Girard College--Trials, litigation, etc.
- Girard College.
- Mount Lawn Cemetery (Sharon Hill, Pa.).
- Philadelphia (Pa.). City Council.
- Women lawyers--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia.
- Women lawyers.
- National Bar Association.
- Philadelphia Bar Association.
- Philadelphia Fellowship Commission.
- Sigma Pi Phi.
- United States. President's Committee on Civil Rights.
- United States.
- World Peace Through Law Center.
- International Conference of Social Work.
- White House Conference on Aging.
- African American judges--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia.
- African American judges.
- Women physicians--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia.
- Women physicians.
- Local Subjects:
- Mount Lawn Cemetery (Sharon Hill, Pa.).
- Philadelphia Fellowship Commission.
- Penn Provenance:
- Gift of the trustees of Sadie T.M. Alexander, 1987.
- Physical Description:
- 250 Cubic ft.
- Arrangement:
- The Alexander Papers are organized in five record groups: I. Raymond Pace Alexander (UPT50 A374R), II. Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander (UPT50 A374S), III. Raymond and Sadie Alexander joint papers (UPT50 A37SR), IV. Elizabeth Mossell Anderson (UPT50 A374E), and V. Virginia Margaret Alexander (UPT50 A374V).
- Place of Publication:
- 1817- 2005
- Biography/History:
- Raymond Pace Alexander (1897-1974) and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander (1898-1989) were pioneers among African Americans in the legal profession and leaders in public affairs, politics, and government throughout the middle half of the twentieth century.
- Raymond Pace Alexander, lawyer, judge, civil rights leader, and civic leader, was born in Philadelphia into a large working class family. His mother died shortly after the birth of his youngest sibling, and as a result Raymond was self-supporting from the age of twelve. He graduate from Central High School in 1917, from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1920, and from Harvard Law School in 1923. Admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 1923, Alexander specialized in criminal law and worked in the firm of John R.K. Scott. He married Sadie Tanner Mossell in November of 1923.
- From 1949 to 1951 he was active in the Clark-Dilworth reform democratic movement, supporting the Home Rule Charter for Philadelphia. In 1951 he won election to City Council and was re-elected in 1955. In January of 1959 he was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Court of Common Pleas, No. 4 and was elected to a ten year term the following November. From 1970 until his death in 1974 he served as Senior Judge.
- Dr. Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, lawyer, civil rights leader, and civic leader was born in Philadelphia into a well known upper, middle-class family. Sadie graduated from M Street High School in Washington, D.C. in 1916, from the University of Pennsylvania with her A.B. in 1918, her M.A. in 1919, and her Ph.D. in 1921. After working as an assistant actuary for the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, she returned to Philadelphia in 1923 and married Raymond Pace Alexander. In 1927 she graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, the first African American woman to do so at the University. Continuing in her succession of firsts, she was the first African American woman to practice law in Pennsylvania.
- Sadie joined in practice with Raymond Alexander and specialized in estate and family law. She served as Secretary to the National Bar Association; she also served on Truman's Committee on Civil Rights, the committee responsible for producing the planning document entitled, To Secure These Rights. Sadie worked on local civil rights assignments, notably as chair of the committee responsible for the formation of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations of the Home Rule Charter. Her national stature was recognized when President Jimmy Carter appointed her chair of the White House Conference on Aging in 1978; she was removed from this committee by Ronald Reagan in 1981. Sadie and Raymond had two children, Rae Pace and Mary Elizabeth.
- Elizabeth Mossell Anderson, Sadie's elder sister, served as Dean of Women at Virginia State College and later at Wilburforce University, Ohio. Upon her retirement in 1964, she came to live with the Alexanders in Philadelphia, residing with them until her death in 1975.
- Virginia Margaret Alexander, Raymond's younger sister, became close friends with Sadie while attending the University of Pennsylvania as an undergraduate. She later attended the Medical College of Pennsylvania and practiced medicine there, specializing in gynecology, until her death in 1949.
- Summary:
- The Alexander Papers constitute a highly significant resource for the social and political history of the city of Philadelphia and, in particular, for the history of the city's black professional and political elite, black civic organizations, and institutions concerned with race relations and civil rights.
- In addition to the great mass of material pertaining to the Alexander's professional, civic, and governmental activities, their papers also include a somewhat smaller but still significant quantity of correspondence, financial records, and other family papers pertaining to the private sphere, including home and family, estate, social life, and international travel. Researchers interested in the black family or the social world of the black professional elite will find a rich field here for exploration. There are also a large number of photographs, slides, and reels of film.
- Supplementary to the Alexanders' own papers are papers of Sadie Alexander's sister, Elizabeth Mossell Anderson; and paper of Raymond Alexander's sister, Virginia Margaret Alexander. These papers are fragmentary. The collection also contains some papers of the Alexanders' daughter, Rae Pace Alexander Minter.
- Finding Aid/Index:
- Unpublished finding aid available from repository.
- Constituent Unit:
- Alexander, Sadie Tanner Mossell, 1898-1989. Student scrapbook, 1919-1921.
- OCLC:
- 122614786
- Online:
- Finding aid
- Finding aid
- Finding aid
- Finding aid
- Finding aid
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