"Edward Alexander Bouchet (1852-1918)

Was born in his house in New Haven, Connecticut to parents William and Susan Cooley Bouchet.At that time there was only three schools in New Haven open to black children.He was enrolled in the Artisan Street Colored School with only one teacher,who nurtured Edward's academic abilities.He attended the New Haven High School from 1866-1868 and then Hopkins School from 1868-1870 where he was named valedictorian (after graduating first in his class).When he was admitted to in 1870,Edward became the first to break the "color line"at Yale.He tackled a very challenging curriculum with courses in German,French Greek and Latin.His main interests were in the sciences and mathematics.He took classes in mechanics,physics,and astronomy and earned in his first the GPA of 3.36.Edward especially excelled in mathematics with a grade point average of 3.52,and received summa cum laude honors in all of his undergraduate studies upon graduation in 1874,sixth in his class.He was the first African American elected into the academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa,but his induction was delayed because Yale's chapter was inactive for a number of years.By that time he was inducted in 1884,another African American,George Washington Henderson of the University of Vermont had preceded him into the society.Edward was unable to find a university teaching position after college,most likely due to racial discrimination.He moved to Philadelphia in 1876 and took a position at the Institute for Colored Youth (ICY).He taught physics and chemistry at the ICY for 26 years.The ICY was renamed Cheyney University.He resigned in 1902 at the height of the W.E.B.Du Bois-Booker T.Washington controversy over the need for an industrial vs.collegiate for African-Americans.Edward spent the next 14 years holding a variety of jobs around the country.Between 1905 and 1908,he was director of academics at ST.Paul's Normal and Industrial School in Lawrenceville,Virginia (presently,ST.Paul's College).He was then principal and teacher at Lincoln High School in Gallipolis,Ohio from 1908 to 1913.He joined the faculty of Bishop College In Marshall Texas,in 1913.Illness finally forced him to retire in 1916 and he moved back to New Haven.He died there.Edward never married or had children.The American Physical Society(APS Physics) confers the Edward A.Bouchet Award on some of the nation's outstanding physicists for their contribution to physics.The Edward Bouchet Abdus Salam Institute was founded in 1988 by the late Nobel Laureate,Professor Abdus Salam under the direction of the Chairman Charles S.Brown.In 2005,Yale and Howard universities founded the Edward A.Bouchet Graduate Honor Society in his name.