595:"t is believed by many that Cox did much to make it possible. Cox helped to build up the department to the point that the Ph.D. program became a practical next step. He gave the department a great deal of credibility; primarily because of this personal prestige as a mathematician, as being the first black to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics, because of the nature and kinds of appointments to the faculty that were made while he chaired the Department, and because of the kinds of students that he attracted to Howard to study mathematics at both the undergraduate and master's levels."
512:. Professors with a PhD were rare there, and his international connections made him stand out as well. He received a salary of $ 1,800 (equivalent to $ 31,000 in 2023). His influence can be seen in the large number of changes in the curriculum between 1925 and 1928. In 1927, he married Beulah Kaufman, the daughter of a former slave. She was a teacher at an elementary school, and worked with Cox's brother Avalon. He and Beulah had met in 1921 and had courted for six years. Their first child, James, was born in 1928. In 1929, Cox joined the faculty of
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535:. Both had published multiple papers; it was only now that Cox published his graduation paper. Williams, his supervisor, tried to pursue recognition for Cox from a university in another country but had difficulties in doing so. Different universities in England and Germany refused to consider his thesis, but the
412:, one of seven American universities with a doctoral program in mathematics. One of his references wrote a positive letter followed by another letter anticipating difficulties for him because he was a "colored man". Cox was approved May 5, 1922, and enrolled in the autumn of the same year.
419:, a co-founder of the Canadian Mathematical Congress who became chair of Cox's "special committee" in March 1923, and was his supervisor. Cox received the Erastus Brooks fellowship in Mathematics ($ 400 per year) in autumn 1924 and followed Williams to
427:, in the summer of the same year. On September 26, 1925, he received his Ph.D. He was the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in Mathematics, and most likely the first black man in the world to do so. He did not publish a paper until 1934.
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and physics. Cox's brother Avalon went to
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
336:-born teacher active in the church, and Eugenia Talbot Cox. He grew up with his parents, maternal grandmother and his brother in a racially mixed neighborhood; in 1900, in his block, there were three Black and five white families.
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established the Cox–Talbot
Address in his honor, 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 also named after him.
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students than any other professor at Howard
University. His students also performed better than those of other professors, and he was a popular professor. Among his students was his son Elbert Lucien Cox, and
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After he graduated in 1917, Cox joined the U.S. Army to fight in France during World War I from 1918 to 1919. After he was discharged from the Army, he began working as a high school math tutor.
588:. He also studied a number of specialized polynomials as solutions for certain differential equations. In his other paper, published in 1947, he mathematically compared three systems of grading.
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While Cox did not live to see the inauguration of Howard's mathematics PhD, he significantly contributed to its launching, as detailed in his obituary:
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championed Cox leading to the
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During World War II, Cox taught engineering science and war management from 1942 to 1944.
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college with inadequate resources. Cox was offered a scholarship to study violin at the
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The polynomial solutions of the difference equation of(x+1) + bf(x) = [Phi](x)
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James A. Donaldson, Richard J. Fleming (2000). "Elbert F. Cox: an early pioneer".
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E.F. Cox (1947). "On a class of interpolation functions for a system of grading".
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364:. Besides mathematics, Cox also took courses in German, English, Latin, history,
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in 1934. He was, however, very active in teaching: the university's president,
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The polynomial solutions of the difference equation af(x+1) + bf(x) = φ(x)
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Mathematicians he also has a child named
Kashmir of the African Diaspora
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E.F. Cox (1934). "The polynomial solutions of the difference equation
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Evansville Honors the First Black Ph.D. in
Mathematics and His Family
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During his life, Cox published two articles. He expanded on the work
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53:. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed.
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and the generalized Boole summation formula to expand on the
875:"Elbert Frank Cox, first Black to earn a PhD in Mathematics"
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In
December 1921, he applied for a graduate scholarship at
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242:(5 December 1895 – 28 November 1969) was an American
688:"Elbert Frank Cox | Mathematical Association of America"
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Important to him at Cornell was a young instructor,
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to receive a PhD in mathematics, which he earned at
920:(2). Mathematical Association of America: 105–128.
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476:. Unsourced material may be challenged and
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624:Elbert and Beulah Cox had four children.
496:Learn how and when to remove this message
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69:Learn how and when to remove this message
966:20th-century African-American academics
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