Josefa Zaratt
Returning to the United States in 1908, Josefa Zaratt worked for several years at Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital in Philadelphia. Douglass Hospital provided medical care for the city’s African American population, many of whom could not access care elsewhere. Her photograph appears here in a catalog documenting the city’s leading Black professionals.
Josefa Zaratt was born in Sabana Grande, Puerto Rico in 1870 and graduated from Tufts Medical College in 1905. Zaratt was among the first students of African descent to graduate from the school. Tufts Medical College was one of the few coeducational medical schools in the country when it opened in 1893.
Shortly after graduating from Tufts Medical College and returning to Puerto Rico, Josefa Zaratt advertised her medical practice in local newspapers. This example from the September 1906 issue of the Boletin Mercantil de Puerto Rico lists Zaratt’s educational achievements and past practices and notes that she specializes in “enfermedades de mujeres y ninos.”
After receiving her license from the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine, Zaratt worked at Douglass Hospital in Philadelphia, and at various hospitals in New York and Massachusetts. Although she eventually owned her own practice, serving women and children out of her Roxbury, MA home, Zaratt maintained ties to her family, frequently traveling between the United States and Puerto Rico. She died in the Bronx in 1962.