Elmer Imes

Elmer Samuel Imes (October 12, 1883 – 1941) born in Memphis, Tennessee, was the second African American to earn a Ph.D. in Physics and the first in the 20th century. He was among the first African-American scientists to make important contributions to modern physics. While working in industry, he gained four patents for instruments to be used for measuring magnetic and electric properties. As an academic, he chaired and developed the department of physics at Fisk University, serving from 1930 to 1941.

Elmer Imes was born in Memphis, Tennessee to Elizabeth Wallace and Benjamin A. Imes, both of whom were college educated and met at Oberlin College in Ohio. Benjamin earned a divinity degree at Oberlin Theological Seminary in 1880. His father was descended from free people of color in Pennsylvania at the time of the Revolution. His mother was born into slavery; her family moved to Oberlin when she was a child. Imes had two younger brothers: Albert Lovejoy Imes and William Lloyd Imes. The latter became a minister and was later pastor of St. James Presbyterian Church in New York City; he held degrees from Fisk, Union Theological Seminary, and Columbia University.

Imes and his brothers attended grammar school in Oberlin, Ohio. Their parents became missionaries with the American Missionary Association and moved to the South to serve freedmen and their children. Imes completed his high school education at the Agricultural and Mechanical High School in Norman, Alabama. He graduated from Fisk University, a historically black college, in 1903 with a degree in science.

Upon graduating from Fisk, Imes taught mathematics and physics at Georgia Normal and Agricultural Institute in Albany, Georgia (presently Albany State University, a historically black college) and the Emerson Institute in Mobile, Alabama. Imes returned to Fisk in 1913 as an instructor of science and mathematics. During his tenure there, Imes earned a master's degree in science from Fisk University.

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