Eslanda Goode, the daughter of John Goode and Eslanda Cardozo, was born in Washington in 1896. In 1912 Goode won a four-year scholarship to the University of Illinois. After graduating in 1917, she accepted an offer as histological chemist at the Presbyterian Hospital in New York. Goode married Paul Robeson in 1921 but continued her studies and after graduating from the University of Chicago in 1923, Goode became the first African American analytical chemist at Columbia Medical Centre. Her book, Paul Robeson, Negro, was first published in 1930.