His landmark contributions to the world of physics made Elmer Imes one of the most respected and recognized scientist of his day. Elmer Samuel Imes was born in Memphis, TN, on October 12, 1883. Both of his parents were alumni of Oberlin College in Ohio, where they met. Their parents became home missionaries in the Congregational Church with the American Missionary Association and moved to the South to serve freedmen and their children. Elmer Imes and his brothers attended grammar school in Oberlin, Ohio. From 1895 to 1899, Elmer attended and completed his high school education at the Agricultural and Mechanical High School in Normal, Alabama, and set his sights on higher education.
Elmer Imes enrolled at Fisk University and in 1903 he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in general science. When Imes entered Fisk around 1899, Fisk was a relatively new institution of higher learning. Despite its youth, Fisk offered Imes a classical education superior to what was available to most African Americans at the time. Upon graduating from Fisk, he accepted a job teaching physics and mathematics at Albany State University in Albany, Georgia and the Emerson Institute in Mobile, Alabama. In 1910, Imes returned to Fisk to teach and earned his master’s degree there in science in 1915.
With a strong inclination for research, he enrolled at the University of Michigan for additional study in physics, where he was accepted for probationary study. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was common for northern universities to require Black students graduating from Black colleges to repeat the last year of the university’s undergraduate program. They felt they could not objectively measure the students’ qualifications. However, Black students generally performed extremely well and after receiving their advance degrees were very successful in their careers. That was certainly the case with Elmer Imes.
After a year at Michigan he was chosen as a graduate fellow, a position he continued in until 1918, when he completed his doctorate in physics. Imes was the second African American to receive a Ph.D. in physics, and the first to do significant research work, since Edward Bouchet graduated from Yale University in 1876. Imes was also one of the first African Americans to be initiated into Sigma Xi, a scientific honor society, and to be listed in American Men of Science. While at the University of Michigan, Imes' research and doctoral thesis opened up an entirely new field of research, the study of molecular structure though use of a high resolution infrared spectrometer.
Under the direction of Harrison Randall, Imes’s landmark work in physics included conducting the first high-precision experiments measuring the IR spectrum of three diatomic molecules, hydrogen chloride (HCl), hydrogen bromide (HBr), and hydrogen fluoride (HF). Specifically, his work was one of the earliest applications of high resolution infrared spectroscopy and provided the first detailed spectra of molecules giving way to the study molecular structure through infrared spectroscopy. Imes’ dissertation studied molecular structures through high‐resolution infrared spectroscopy. This work led to him being the first African-American to be published in a physics journal in the United States.
This research thesis titled “Measurements on the Near-Infrared Absorption of Some Diatomic Gases,” was published in November 1919 in the Astrophysical Journal. His dissertation broke new scientific ground, presenting a new form of research, that fundamentally changed quantum theory. It is still regarded as the definitive work in the field. This work was followed by a paper co-authored and presented jointly with Harrison Randall, "The Fine Structure of the Near Infra-Red Absorption Bands of HCI, HBr, and HF" at the American Physical Society and published in the Physical Review in 1920. The research also provided a verification of quantum theory. It became known in Europe as well as in the United States.
Before Imes’ study, some scientists were not certain whether quantum theory applied to the emission spectra of molecules. Imes’ work showed that quantum theory could be applied to the rotational energy states of molecules as well as the vibrational and electronic energy levels. In the years after his dissertation was published, his work was cited extensively in research papers and reviews of literature. Within a short time, his work was also incorporated into textbooks on modern physics. Despite the excellence and impact of his work, as an African American Imes faced limited professional opportunities in most of the U.S during the early 20th century. Black men with higher education simply were not welcome in White institutions.
In the years following World War I, New York City attracted Black writers, artists, entertainers, political strategists, and intellectuals, and Imes moved there in 1918. This was an exciting time in American history called the Harlem Renaissance. Tens of thousands of African Americans migrated to Northern urban areas from the South. The Harlem Renaissance was a literary and intellectual movement that resulted in new Black cultural identities and expressions. Among the figures in the Harlem Renaissance was writer Nella Larsen, whom Imes met during his early years in the city. He shared her artistic and intellectual interests, and the two married on May 3rd 1919.
Larsen thrived in the Harlem Renaissance setting and published two novels, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929). She became the first Black woman to win the famed Guggenheim Fellowship for creative writing in 1930. The couple had moved from Jersey City, New Jersey, to Harlem, where they became part of the professional and cultural society. He came into contact with prominent African American intellectuals and artists including W.E.B Du Bois and Langston Hughes, members of the Black elite. While working there, first as a self-employed consulting physicist and later as an employee of three engineering-based firms, Imes engaged in R&D work that led to four patents for devices or techniques for improving the measurement of magnetic properties of various materials.
Despite being recognized as important by colleagues, for his scientific achievements, Imes found it difficult to find employment in White-dominated schools and businesses. So after receiving his Ph.D., Imes left academia to work in industry in the New York region. He worked in physics at the Federal Engineers Development Corporation in 1918 and with the Burrows Magnetic Equipment Corporation in 1922. Widely read and versed in literature, Imes possessed a poetic disposition and maintained an intense appreciation for music. In 1927, Imes went to work as a research engineer at E.A. Everett Signal Supplies.
During the decade that Imes worked in the scientific and materials industry, his research resulted in four patents for instruments that were used for measuring magnetic and electric properties. By the end of the decade, Imes was eager to return to an academic environment. When he was offered the opportunity to develop a formal program of physics education and research at Fisk, he accepted. His wife, however, had no interest in living in the racially segregated South and continued to spend most of her time in New York. In 1930, Imes returned to Fisk University for a second time, to establish and chair the Physics Department.
Imes is credited with the academic development of the physics programs at Fisk. In August of 1933 Larsen divorced Imes, claiming cruelty as the grounds for dissolving the marriage. It’s more likely that she was unwilling to leave New York, where she was part of a lively circle of artists and intellectuals, for the relatively tame life of a professor’s wife at a small liberal arts college. Imes was excited about the opportunity to elevate the physics department at Fisk by offering courses equal to the best available in bachelor’s and master’s programs at any university. At Fisk, Imes was concerned about exposing students to the history of science.
He developed a course called “Cultural Physics” in which he presented students with the history of science from the Greeks until the twentieth century. He planned to have students involved in research even at the undergraduate level. Three of Fisk’s physics graduates in the class of 1935 were accepted into graduate programs at the University of Michigan. One student, Carolyn Parker, earned an MS in mathematics from Michigan in 1941 and an MS in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1951, becoming the first Black woman to earn a degree in physics. Imes’ interest in infrared spectroscopy set the direction of the department’s early research.
Elmer Samuel Imes was chairman of Fisks' Physics department until his death in 1941. The world of art and cultural pursuits that Imes was part of in New York overlapped with his life at Fisk. He knew many on the Fisk faculty from associations formed in New York. For example, writer Arna Bontemps and artist Aaron Douglas, prominent figures in the Harlem Renaissance, both joined the Fisk faculty. The Imes family name was well known among the elite, educated African American population, and Imes’s wife was widely known as a writer. Those associations were of great value in forming other connections at the university, particularly among faculty outside the sciences.
He was also involved in a number of professional societies such as the American Physical Society and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. Imes was respected and highly regarded by both his students and his peers. During his time in New York, Dr. Imes worked in industry designing and building tools to improve magnetic properties of materials, earning himself four US patents. Dr. Imes had a reputation as a great scientist and cultured man. In foreign scientific annals, he was known as "Imes of the U.S.A.", a title which suggested large amounts of fame abroad, which he did not get in the United States due to his race.