Mary Mossell Griffin

Mary Mossell Griffin (c. 1885 — after January 1963) was an American writer, clubwoman, and suffragist based in Philadelphia.

Early life
Aaron Albert Mossell I, Eliza Bowers and five of their children (From left to right are: Mary Mossell; Alvaretta Mossell; Charles Mossell; Aaron Albert Mossell II, the father of Sadie Tanner Mossell and Nathan Francis Mossell)

Mary "Mazie" Campbell Mossell[1] was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the elder daughter of Dr. Nathan Francis Mossell and Gertrude Bustill Mossell, a writer, newspaper columnist, and editor.[2] She came from an unusually well-educated family: Her father was the first African-American graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and a prominent member of Philadelphia's medical community. Her uncle Aaron Albert Mossell II was the first African-American from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law. Her first cousin Sadie Tanner Mossell was the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in the United States, also at the University of Pennsylvania. Another first cousin was singer and activist Paul Robeson. Her grandfather Charles Hicks Bustill was a prominent abolitionist in Philadelphia.[3]

Career

Mary Campbell Mossell taught kindergarten from 1907 to 1908 in Darby, Pennsylvania. She wrote for several newspapers, including the Philadelphia Courant, the Philadelphia Tribune, and the Washington Sun. She was president of the Harriet Tubman Association, and the Sojourner Truth Suffrage League, and she organized the Phillis Wheatley Literary Society. She was the author of Afro American Men and Women who Count (1915).[4] In 1927-1928, she headed a national survey of black women wage earners.[5] With Anna J. Cooper, she established a New Jersey summer camp for Philadelphia children.[6]

Mary Mossell Griffin chaired the suffrage department of the Northeastern Federation of Women's Clubs during the 1910s, and of the legal department of the National Association of Colored Women[7] during the 1920s.[8] In the latter role, she took an active role in seeing an anti-lynching bill successfully through the Pennsylvania legislature.[9] She was president of the Northeast Republican Women's Alliance in 1924.[10] In 1940, she was selected to chair the Phillis Wheatley Monument Fund, to erect a monument at the Boston gravesite of Wheatley.[11]

Mossell Griffin took an interest in local affairs too. In 1934, she led a successful campaign to employ black clerks at an open air produce market in Philadelphia.[12] In 1941, she supported parents protesting about an overcrowded school in need of repairs.[13] In 1936, Mary Mossell Griffin ran for a seat on Philadelphia's 7th Ward executive committee.[14]

Personal life

Mary C. Mossell married Joshua R. Griffin Jr., a medical doctor from Richmond, Virginia, in 1909. They had one child, Francis Raleigh Griffin.[4] She was widowed when Dr. Griffin died in 1931.[15] She was still alive when her younger sister died in January 1963.[1]

References
  1. "Philly Matron Dies; Family Dates to 1608" Pittsburgh Courier (January 5, 1963): 7. via Newspapers.com
  2. Rodger Streitmatter, Raising her Voice: African American Women Journalists Who Changed History (University Press of Kentucky 2015): 37-48. ISBN 9780813149059
  3. "Penn Biographies: Nathan Francis Mossell" University of Pennsylvania Archives and Records Center.
  4. "Mary Campbell Mossell Griffin" in Frank Lincoln Mather, Who's Who of the Colored Race (Chicago 1915): 124.
  5. "Women Plan Nationwide Survey" Chicago Defender (November 26, 1927): A1.
  6. "Anna Cooper, M. D., Passes at Age 66" Chicago Defender (May 16, 1936): 3.
  7. Lisa G. Materson, For the Freedom of her Race: Black Women and Electoral Politics in Illinois 1877-1932 (UNC Press 2009): 159. ISBN 9780807832714
  8. Bettye Collier-Thomas, Jesus, Jobs, and Justice: African American Women and Religion (Knopf Doubleday Publishing 2010): 260-261. ISBN 9780307593054
  9. "Mrs. Mossell Griffin's Lynch Bill as a Model" [1922], NAACP Papers, Part 7: The Anti-Lynching Campaign, 1912-1955, Series B: Anti-Lynching Legislative and Publicity Files, 1916-1955, Library of Congress (Microfilm, Reel 3, Frame 672).
  10. "Woman Voters Preparing for Hard Battle in Fall" Chicago Defender (April 26, 1924): 13.
  11. "Headquarters of Phyllis Wheatley Monument Fund is Opened in Philly" Chicago Defender (August 3, 1940): 18.
  12. "Women Win Victory" Pittsburgh Courier (October 27, 1934): 6. via Newspapers.com
  13. "Among Our Colored Citizens" Delaware County Daily Times (October 13, 1941): 29. via Newspapers.com
  14. Mossell Griffin, "On the Political Front" Chicago Defender (April 4, 1936): 11.
  15. Geraldine Rhoads Beckford, Biographical Dictionary of American Physicians of African Ancestry, 1800-1920 (Africana Homestead Legacy 2013): 133. ISBN 9781937622183
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