“I knew well that the only way I could get that door open was to knock it down; because I knocked all of them down.” – Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, 1977

One of the three African-American women who in 1921 became the first to earn their Doctor of Philosophy degrees in the United States, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander was the first to earn a PhD in economics when she graduated from the University of Pennsylvania.

Read more in “Beyond Inspiring: History’s Female PhD Pioneers“.

Image credit: “Sadie T.M. Alexander… in academic gown,” 1921, by Gilbert & Bacon (Courtesy University of Pennsylvania Digital Archives).