02/10/2023
Edward Bouchet (1852–1918) was an American physicist and educator. He was the first African American to earn a PhD from an American university, completing his dissertation in physics at Yale University in 1876. Bouchet had become one of the first African Americans to graduate from Yale College in 1874. On the basis of his academic record, he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, an academic honor society. Unable to find a university-teaching or research-facility position due to racial discrimination, he moved to Philadelphia in 1876 and took a position at the Institute for Colored Youth, where he taught physics and chemistry for the next 26 years. This photograph of Bouchet, from the archives of Yale, is part of a portrait album of students in the class of 1874.
