Ruth Hartley Mosley

Ruth Price Hartley Mosley (September23, 1886 August14, 1975) was an American nurse, businesswoman, and civil rights activist. In 1910, she became the first black woman to be the head of a nursing department. Mosley was also one of the first women to be licensed as an embalmer.

Ruth Price was born on September23, 1886 in Savannah, Georgia; her father was a bootmaker and her mother was a dressmaker. After finishing high school, Mosley studied nursing in Concord, North Carolina and at Provident Hospital in Chicago. She went on to work at the Georgia State Sanitarium in Milledgeville, where she was appointed head of the "Colored Females Department" in 1910. After Hartley's death on October1, 1931, she married Fischer Mosley in 1937 and worked as a nurse for the Bibb County school system. At one point, she owned over 100 rental properties.

Mosley was part of Macon's NAACP chapter, and was a founding member of the Booker T. Washington Community Center. She also enjoyed playing bridge. She left money to establish the Ruth Hartley Mosley Memorial Fund and the Ruth Hartley Mosley Memorial Women's Center. Mosley was added to the Georgia Women of Achievement in 1994.