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Elbert Frank Cox (December 5, 1895–November 28, 1969) was an American mathematician who became the first black person in the world to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics. He spent most of his life as a professor at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he was known as an excellent teacher. During his life, he overcame various difficulties which arose because of his race. In his honor, the National Association of Mathematicians established the Cox-Talbot Address, which is annually delivered at the NAM's national meetings. The Elbert F. Cox Scholarship Fund, which is used to help black students pursue studies, is named in his honor as well. In 1917 after graduating, Cox joined the U.S Army in World War I. After he discharged from the Army, he began his career as a high school math tutor. == College years == He studied physics and the violin and was offered a scholarship for the latter at Prague Conservatory in Bohemia (at that time part of Austria-Hungary), but he chose to pursue mathematics at Indiana University. He enrolled there in September 1913, 25 years after Robert Judson Aley had been the first to receive a bachelor's degree in mathematics at the university. Cox was also initiated into Kappa Alpha Nu (Kappa Alpha Psi) Fraternity Inc. Besides mathematics, Cox took courses in German, English, Latin, history, hygiene, chemistry, education, philosophy and physics. Cox's brother Avalon was at Indiana University as well; there were three other black students in his class. He received his bachelor's degree in 1917, at a time when the transcript of every black student had the word "COLORED" printed across it. After serving in the US Army in France during World War I, he returned to pursue a career in teaching, as an instructor of mathematics at a high school in Henderson, Kentucky. In December 1921 he applied for admission to Cornell University, one of seven American universities with a doctoral program in mathematics. One of his references wrote a positive letter followed by another letter anticipating "... certain difficulties for the young man because of the fact he is of the colored race." So Cox joined the faculty of Shaw University.〔http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/PEEPS/cox_elbertf.html〕 Cox was awarded an Erastus Brooks Fellowship in September 1922, and he enrolled in Cornell University. When Cox's thesis advisor William Lloyd Garrison Williams (also founder of the Canadian Mathematical Society) realized that Cox had the 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 disputed. Universities in England and Germany turned Cox down (possibly for reasons of race), but Japan's Imperial University of San Dei accepted the dissertation. He was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in Mathematics (Cornell University, 1925), just 39 years after Cornell gave its first Ph.D. in Mathematics (1886). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Elbert Frank Cox」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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