Edward Alexander Bouchet was born in Connecticut in 1852. He graduated valedictorian from Hopkins Grammar School. He was a deacon at a church. Edward was the youngest of his four brothers. He continued at New Haven High School. He spent a lot of time studying mathematics. He learned Latin and Greek.
Although there weren't many chances for black seeking higher education, he began his studies at Yale University and completed his bachelor’s degree in 1874. He ranked sixth in a class of 124. On the basis of this exceptional performance, Bouchet became the first black in the nation to be nominated to Phi Beta Kappa, but he was not elected at that time. George Washington Henderson was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1877 at the University of Vermont as the first,
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from an American university as well as the sixth American of any race to earn a Ph.D. in physics. Unlike anyone else in the U.S. who earned a Ph.D. at that time and for the next 80 years, Bouchet was unable to obtain a college or university position because he was black. Bouchet moved to Philadelphia to teach at the Institute for Colored Youth (ICY). Dr. Bouchet taught chemistry and physics for twenty-six years at ICY. Dr. Bouchet resigned in 1902 when the Institute's college preparatory program was discontinued "at the height of the Du Bois-Washington controversy over industrial vs. collegiate education."
In October 1906, Bouchet got a teaching and administrative position at St. Paul's Normal and Industrial School in Lawrenceville, Virginia. In 1908 he became principal of Lincoln High School of Gallipolis, Ohio, until 1913. Bouchet returned to teaching at Bishop College in Marshall, Texas, but illness forced him to retire in 1916. He returned to New Haven, where he died in the home he grew up in at 94 Bradley Street. He had never married or had