In the late nineteenth century, Lincoln University alumni actively sought to persuade the all-white board of trustees to integrate the all-white Lincoln University faculty. Leading the struggle was Dr. Nathan Mossell, a graduate of the class of 1879, who had gone on to earn a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1882. The Alumni Magazine was the publication of the Lincoln University Alumni Association that Dr. Mossell founded in Philadelphia.
The magazine, which lasted for several years, contained articles of interest not only to Lincoln University alumni, but to the general African-American public - or at least to the educated African-American elite. Among the many contributors were Frederick Douglass and Dr. Mossell's wife Gertrude Bustill Mossell, now famous in her own right as the author of The Work of the Afro-American Woman (copyright 1894). The Lincoln University Archives has issues of The Alumni Magazine from 1884-1885, donated in 1947 by Dr. Mossell's daughter, Mrs. Maisie Mossell Griffin at the time of his death in 1946 at the age of 90.
For more information about the magazine and about the Lincoln University Alumni Association's struggle to integrate the Lincoln University faculty and board of trustees, see Horace Mann Bond's history of Lincoln University, Education for Freedom (Lincoln University, 1976) and also his article, "A Negro First," in The Negro History Bulletin, Vol. 26, No. 2, Nov. 1962, p. 9. Also see Gertrude Bustill Mossell's The Work of the Afro-American Woman. All are available in the Langston Hughes Memorial Library Special Collections.
Click here to view a searchable PDF file of the Alumni Magazine, 1884-1885
A gift from Marc D. Pevar, Class of 1967, and Susan Gunn Pevar has funded this project, which also included the creation of preservation microfilm. A service copy of the film is available for viewing at the Pennsylvania Archives (Harrisburg, PA).
For information about how to donate to Lincoln University to support similar projects, contact the Development Office.
If you have additional copies of the Alumni Magazine that you would like to donate to Lincoln University, please contact the Langston Hughes Memorial Library Director.
