Rudolph Fisher - Biography

Biography

Born in Washington, DC in the late nineteenth century, Fisher grew up in Providence, Rhode Island graduating from Classical High School and attending Brown University. He earned his Bachelor of Arts from Brown in 1919, where he delivered the valedictory address, and received a Master of Arts a year later. He went on to attend Howard University Medical School and graduated in 1924. He came to New York City in 1925 to take up a fellowship at College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, during which time he published two scientific articles of his research on treating bacteriophage viruses with ultraviolet light. Fisher married Jane Ryder in 1925, and they had one son, Hugh, who was born in 1926. After his fellowship ended, he had a private practice on Long Island. In 1930, Fisher became superintendent of International Hospital, a black-owned private hospital on Seventh Avenue in Harlem, but the hospital went bankrupt in October 1931. Fisher died after unsuccessful abdominal surgery in 1934 at the age of 37.