- Edward Bouchet
Edward Alexander Bouchet (
15 September 1852 –28 October 1918 ) was anAfrican American physicist who is most notable for having been the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from an American university. [ "Edward Bouchet: The First African-American Doctorate". Edited by Ronald E. Mickens.World Scientific Publishing Company, February 2002. ISBN-13: 9789810249090 ] [Patricia Clark Kenschaft, "Change Is Possible: Stories of Women and Minorities in Mathematics".American Mathematical Society . January 2005. ISBN-13: 9780821837481. See pp. 86-87 ] He graduated fromYale University in 1874 as the first black person to graduate from Yale. He completed his dissertation in Yale's Ph.D. program in 1876.Early life
Edward Bouchet was born in
New Haven, Connecticut to parents William and Susan Cooley Bouchet. At that time there were only three schools in New Haven open to black children. Bouchet was enrolled in the Artisan Street Colored School with only one teacher (who nurtured Bouchet's academic abilities). He attended the New Haven High School from 1866-1868 and thenHopkins School from 1868-1870 where he graduated first in his class [http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/physics/bouchet_edward_alexander.html Edward Alexander Bouchet Bio] ] .Professional life
Unlike most Ph.D.s of his time, Bouchet was unable to find a university teaching position after college, probably due to
racial discrimination . Bouchet moved to Philadelphia in 1876 and took a position at the Institute for Colored Youth (ICY). He taught physics andchemistry at the ICY for 26 years. He resigned in 1902 at the height ofW.E.B. DuBois ' controversy over industrial vs. collegiate education.Bouchet spent the next 14 years holding a variety of different jobs around the country. Illness finally forced him to retire in 1916 and he moved back to New Haven. He died there, in his childhood home, at age 66. He had remained childless and unmarried.
References
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
