Josefa Zaratt (also Zarratt) (born 19 March 1871, died 4 August 1962) was the first Black woman to graduate from

Tufts Medical School The Tufts University School of Medicine is the medical school of Tufts University, a private research university in Massachusetts. It was established in 1893 and is located on the university's health sciences campus in downtown Boston. The ''Ti ...

Career

Josefa Zaratt moved back to her native Puerto Rico after attending Tufts University School of Medicine, graduating in 1905, and was practicing medicine in 1906. However, she couldn't get accredited, so returned to the continental US. Zaratt was one of the women who begun paving the path for African American women in the medical field. While they are few of these women, they all played an important role. She worked at Douglass Hospital in Philadelphia in 1910. By 1923, she was practicing medicine in

Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ...

. She appears to be living in Boston in 1932. Zaratt died on August 4, 1962, at

Fordham Hospital Fordham Hospital was the first public hospital in the Bronx, New York City, having opened in 1892. Prior to that time, all the New York City municipal hospitals were in Manhattan. It was located in the Fordham section of the Bronx on Valentine Av ...

in the

Bronx, New York The Bronx () is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state, state of New York (state), New York. It is south of Westchester County, New York, Westchester County; north and east of the ...

. She was buried at

Ferncliff Cemetery and Mausoleum Ferncliff Cemetery and Mausoleum is located at 280 Secor Road in the hamlet of Hartsdale, town of Greenburgh, Westchester County, New York, United States, about north of Midtown Manhattan. It was founded in 1902, and is non-sectarian. Ferncliff ...

in Greenburgh, New York.

References

1871 births 1962 deaths African-American women physicians Burials at Ferncliff Cemetery 20th-century Puerto Rican physicians 20th-century Puerto Rican women physicians Tufts University School of Medicine alumni 20th-century African-American physicians 20th-century American physicians 20th-century African-American women 19th-century Puerto Rican people Immigrants to the United States {{AfricanAmerican-bio-stub