There are some who would say Edward Alexander Bouchet was dealt an unfair hand in life – a young black man with a brilliant mind, born into a segregated society which hindered him from making substantial use of his God-given talent in the field of his choosing. Thankfully, Bouchet did not allow the incompetent mindset of those who sought to hamper him from achieving his goals to succeed.
Edward’s father, William Bouchet, migrated from Charleston, South Carolina to New Haven, Connecticut in 1824. He worked as the valet for a young plantation owner in New Haven until the young planter graduated from school. Upon graduation, the young planter offered a gift to his valet – freedom, and money enough to start a business. By now, William was a prominent figure in New Haven’s Negro community due to being a deacon in the Temple Street Church, the city’s oldest Negro house of worship. Temple Street was also known for being a stopping off point for ‘passengers’ traveling with the Underground Railroad.
The youngest child and only son born to William and his wife Susan Cooley, Edward Alexander Bouchet arrived on September 15, 1852. At the time he was born, New Havenoffered only three schools for him to attend since he was black, so his parents enrolled him in the Artisan Street Colored School. Pretty much a ‘one-room schoolhouse’ setting, the school handled 30 students, none in a particular grade, trained by one teacher. Bouchet later attended New Haven High School from 1866-1868.
Following high school, Bouchet received an acceptance to Hopkins Grammer School. This private institution served to prepare young men for the scientific and classical departments of Yale College. He completed his studies first in his class and entered Yale in 1870. In 1874, he became the first black to ever graduate from the college, ranking sixth in a class of 124 graduating summa cum laude. Due to his outstanding scholastic performance, he was also the first black to be nominated to Phi Beta Kappa.
With the financial support of Philadelphia philanthropist, Alfred Cope, Bouchet returned to Yale in 1874 and in 1876, successfully earned his PhD, the first black person to do so from an American university. His dissertation was on the topic of geometrical optics, making Bouchet the sixth American to earn a PhD in physics.
Though his brilliant mind earned Bouchet a PhD, the fact he was black kept him from obtaining employment with a college or university. Thus, Bouchet moved to Philadelphia and accepted a teaching position at the Institute for Colored Youth (ICY). Alfred Cope, who originally provided the funds for Bouchet to attend Yale, provided ICY with $40,000 to establish a new science program and recruited Bouchet to head it. ICY would go on to play a prominent part in educating thousands of young black teachers who spanned out across the country to educate the freedmen in the various states.
For 26 years, Dr. Bouchet taught physics and chemistry at ICY. During the height of the DuBois-Washington controversy in 1902, the school’s board of directors fired all the instructors and replaced them with new instructors committed to a program of industrial education.
Over the course of the next 14 years, Bouchet taught in various parts of the country, such as Sumner High School in St. Louis, the country’s first high school for blacks west of the Mississippi. In 1908, Bouchet took over as principal of Lincoln High School in Gallipolis, Ohio. He remained here until 1913, at which time an attack of arteriosclerosis signed his resignation paper. He returned to his home of New Haven, Connecticut and later died on October 28, 1918 in his boyhood home, located at 94 Bradley Street.
Though Bouchet never married nor had children, his memory continues. Remembered as one of the most highly educated individuals in his area, he served to inspire young people, both black and white, to hitherto unknown goals. One young man, J. Arnot Mitchell, who graduated from Bowdoin College in 1913 and later became the first black faculty member at Ohio State University, credits Bouchet with much of his inspiration.
The Edward A. Bouchet Fellowship Program at Yale University is named in his honor. The Fellowship is designed to increase the number of minority students and others with a demonstrated commitment to eliminate racial discrepancy, who will pursue PhDs and subsequent careers in academia.
Each year, the American Physical Society bestows the Edward A. Bouchet Award upon an African American, Hispanic American or Native American physicist who has made remarkable contributions to physics.
One of Dr. Bouchet’s former students described him this way: “… He was a fine Christian gentleman, a consummate scholar, one who seemed very knowledgeable in all areas and yet was extremely modest and a person who set a wonderful example of politeness and graciousness for the community. …Certainly it is impossible to assess the far-reaching influence of Dr. Bouchet upon the hundreds of persons whose lives he touched.”
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