June 1876: Edward Bouchet becomes the first African-American doctor of physics
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In 1876, Edward Alexander Bouchet made history by becoming the first African-American physicist to earn a doctorate and the sixth person of any race to receive a doctorate in physics from an American university. Bouchet went on to educate and inspire others as a science teacher at a school for black students.
Edward Bouchet was born in September 1852 in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, a freed slave, worked as an unskilled laborer, like many black men in the city. His mother was a housewife and he had three older sisters. The Bouchet family was active with their local church and the local abolitionist movement, and encouraged all children to get an education.
The local public schools were segregated, so in elementary school Edward Bouchet attended the Artisan Street Colored School, which had 30 students of all grades and one teacher. In 1868 he was admitted to Hopkins Grammar School, a prestigious private preparatory school that sent its graduates to Yale College. At Hopkins Grammar School he received a classical education, studying Latin and Greek as well as geometry, algebra and history. Bouchet graduated first in his class in 1870.
He entered Yale in the fall of that year. Bouchet was not the first black student to enter Yale, but he was the first to graduate. He lived at home while at Yale and was clearly devoted to his studies. In June 1874, he graduated with his sixth degree from a class of 124 students. He was the first black person to be appointed to Phi Beta Kappa.
As a talented young black man interested in science, Bouchet had attracted the attention of Alfred Cope, a Philadelphia philanthropist who was on the board of directors of the Institute for Colored Youth. ICY was one of the few places in the city where black students could obtain a college secondary education. Cope wanted to develop the scientific program there and hoped to integrate Bouchet into his team.
But before recruiting him as a teacher, Cope encouraged Bouchet to continue his studies and financed his graduate studies at Yale. Edward Bouchet spent two more years there, completing additional studies in chemistry, mineralogy and physics. His main teacher was Arthur Wright, who in 1861 had become the first person to earn a doctorate in physics from an American university. Bouchet’s original research was in geometric optics and he wrote a thesis entitled “On the measurement of refractive indices”. Just two years after completing his undergraduate studies, Bouchet became the first black person to earn a doctorate in physics.
A white person with Bouchet’s qualifications could have obtained an academic position, but even with his impressive accomplishments, few career options were available to him as an African American. So, in the fall of 1876, Bouchet went to teach at the Colored Youth Institute, as Cope had desired.
At ICY, Bouchet led the school’s new science program. In addition to physics and chemistry, Bouchet taught courses in astronomy, physical geography, and physiology. An advocate for improving science education, Bouchet repeatedly asked the school’s board of trustees to provide laboratory space for students to conduct individual experiments. In addition to his regular teaching, Bouchet lectured on various scientific topics for students and staff, and even reached out to the wider community by giving public lectures on science.
Bouchet taught at ICY for 26 years. However, by 1900, many young black people were being pushed toward vocational and technical training rather than a college education. Even black leaders, including Booker T. Washington, defended this approach, arguing that this type of education was what was best for blacks. Bouchet’s accomplishments made it clear that blacks were capable of pursuing academic and scientific pursuits, but in 1902, ICY leaders decided that the school would abandon academic subjects and concentrate on industrial education. Bouchet lost his job.
Bouchet spent the next few years in several different teaching positions across the country. In 1916, Bouchet returned home to New Haven in poor health and died in 1918 at age 66. He was survived by his mother, who died two years later at age 102.
As a black man in a segregated society, Bouchet surely faced many challenges, but he did not leave many letters or notebooks, so little is known today about his thoughts on his career or daily life. One of his friends wrote in an obituary that Bouchet was “a man of lively sensitivity and unusual refinement. He was a prolific reader and had a great interest in the history of his own people and his hometown.
Bouchet never married or had children. He was a member of the Franklin Institute and the American Academy of Political and Social Science and was active in the NAACP.
During his teaching career, Bouchet had trained many young black people in science, but black people were still excluded from most scientific training and careers for many years. It was not until 1918, the year Bouchet died, and 42 years after receiving his doctorate, that Elmer Imes became the second African American to receive a doctorate in physics.
Further reading: Ronald E. Mickens, ed., Edward Bouchet, The first African-American doctorate, World Scientific Publishing Company (2002).
