St. Elmo Brady (1884-1966) writes to Henry McBay (1914-1995) providing updates on his ongoing work to obtain grant funding and new staff to develop the chemistry program at Fisk college. Brady concludes the letter by inquiring which incentives would convince McBay to join the Fisk chemistry department staff.

Brady was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, he earned a bachelor's degree at Fisk University in 1908, then taught at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University) before pursuing graduate studies in chemistry at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He earned his doctorate in 1916, then returned to Tuskegee, where he developed the school's undergraduate chemistry program. In 1920, he accepted an offer to chair the chemistry department at Howard University, where he developed the undergraduate chemistry program and started the first graduate chemistry program at a historically black university. In 1927, he returned to Fisk as chair of the chemistry department. Over the next 25 years, he mentored and taught hundreds of students, assembled an outstanding chemistry faculty, and helped establish the Infrared Spectroscopy Institute