Elbert F. Cox was born into the segregated school system and his father was a school principal and he graduated from Evansville college and worked at Indiana University. The Cox family had a great respect for learning, and when Cox was exceptional in mathematics and physics and went to school at Indiana University, he was awarded an Erastus Brooks Scholarship in September 1922 and enrolled at Cornell University , Cox was a founder of the Canadian Mathematical Society, and he realized that Cox had a chance to be recognized not only as the first black in the United States, but as the first black in the world to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics, he urged his student to send his thesis to a university in another country so that Cox's status in this regard would not be challenged. Universities in England and Germany rejected Cox (perhaps on racial grounds), but San Dei Imperial University in Japan accepted the thesis. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay He was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in Mathematics (Cornell University, 1925), just 39 years after Cornell earned its first Ph.D. in Mathematics (1886). In September 1925, Cox became the head of the mathematics and physics department at West Virginia State College. He remained there four years and in 1929 transferred to Howard University. Cox remained at Howard until his retirement in 1965 and served as chairman of the Department of Mathematics from 1957 to 1961. In 1975 the Department of Mathematics at Howard University upon inauguration of the Ph.D. program, established the fund for Elbert F. Cox Scholarships for Mathematics Majors to encourage you, Black students, to study mathematics at the college level. at this time it was notable, for no place or institution was friendly to the Negro. In fact, only 28 PhDs in mathematics were awarded nationwide in 1925, but 31 black men were lynched that year. For many years Dr. Cox taught at Howard University (1929-1961) alongside second and third African American mathematics Ph.D.s, Dudley Woodard and Walter Claytor, and later with mathematicians George Butcher and David Blackwell. Therefore, Howard really leads historically black colleges and universities as the premier place of learning. This strength easily incorporated a graduate mathematics program at Howard. Elbert Cox married Beulah P. Kaufman, an elementary school teacher, on September 14, 1927. They had three children, James, Eugene and Elbert. After a short illness. Please note: this is just a sample. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Cox died at Cafritz Memorial Hospital on November 28, 1969. In 1980, the National Association of Mathematicians (NAM) honored Cox with the inauguration of the Cox-Talbot Address which is delivered annually at the NAM National Meeting. Works Cited Constance Reid (1987). "Elbert Frank Cox". In Louise S. Grinstein, Paul J. Campbell (eds.). Women of mathematics: a book of biobibliographic sources. Greenwood Press. pages 41–45. ISBN 978-0313242615. Cox, E. F. (1925). "On the numerical coefficients of the seventh and eighth symmetric functions of n variables". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 11 (6): 363–365. Cox, Elbert Frank (1925). Two-dimensional topology. Tokyo: Kokubunsha. Dauben, Joseph W.; Scriba, Christoph J. (2002). Writing the history of mathematics: its historical development. Springer. ISBN 978-0387953367.O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F. (2004). "Elbert Frank Cox". MacTutor's history of mathematics archive. School of Mathematics and Statistics,. 2 (14): 14–15.