The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
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List of the most influential people in Education,
#2351
Carl Georg Brunius
1793 - 1869 (76 years)
Carl Georg Brunius was a classical scholar, art historian, archaeologist and architect. He served as a professor and rector at Lund University. During 1833-59, he led the restoration work of Lund Cathedral.
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John Henderson Jr.
1870 - 1923 (53 years)
John Brooks Henderson Jr. was an American diplomat, educator, and malacologist. Early life Henderson was born in Pike County, Missouri on February 18, 1870. He was the son of United States Senator John Brooks Henderson and social activist Mary Foote Henderson, who was known as "The Empress of Sixteenth Street." His father was known as the Senator who introduced the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution that abolished slavery and one of seven Republicans who voted against the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in May 1868.
Go to Profile#2353
Émile Mâle
1862 - 1954 (92 years)
Émile Mâle was a French art historian, one of the first to study medieval, mostly sacral French art and the influence of Eastern European iconography thereon. He was a member of the Académie française, and a director of the Académie de France à Rome.
Go to Profile#2354
D. H. Turner
1931 - 1985 (54 years)
Derek Howard Turner was an English museum curator and art historian who specialised in liturgical studies and illuminated manuscripts. He worked at the British Museum and the British Library from 1956 until his death, focusing on exhibitions, scholarship, and loans.
Go to Profile#2355
Christoph Wilhelm Jacob Gatterer
1759 - 1838 (79 years)
Christoph Wilhelm Jacob Gatterer was a German cameralist and natural historian born in Göttingen. He was the son of historian Johann Christoph Gatterer . He studied natural sciences and mineralogy in Göttingen, earning his degree in 1778. In 1787 he became a professor of agriculture, forestry and technology at the University of Heidelberg. He later became a professor of diplomatics, and in 1803 was appointed director of the Schloßgarten in Heidelberg.
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Antal Hekler
1882 - 1940 (58 years)
Antal Hekler was a Hungarian/German classical archaeologist and art historian. He was a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Life He wrote his doctoral thesis in political science in 1903 and then studied classical archaeology in Munich under Adolf Furtwängler, where he wrote his second doctoral thesis, before he returned to his birthplace Budapest, where he first worked at the city's national museum and later held a chair for Christian archaeology and history of art at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Budapest.
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Horst Gerson
1907 - 1978 (71 years)
Horst Gerson was a German-Dutch art historian. Biography Gerson was born in Berlin on 2 March 1907, and after studying art history in Vienna, he became a pupil and assistant of Cornelis Hofstede de Groot and worked for Hofstede de Groot's RKD during the years 1934–1966, becoming a Dutch citizen in 1940 and becoming director of the RKD on 1 January 1954. He was the nephew of Karl Lilienfeld, who had assisted Hofstede de Groot before him. In 1966 he became professor of art history at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, and during the years 1966–1975 he was head of the Kunsthistorisch Instituut Groningen.
Go to Profile#2358
Esther Baker Steele
1835 - 1911 (76 years)
Esther Baker Steele was an American educator, author, editor, and philanthropist of the long nineteenth century. She aided her husband, Dr. J. Dorman Steele in his fourteen-week Barnes' Brief Histories series of books, these publications being, Brief History of the United States, 1871; France, 1875; Centenary History of United States, 1875; Ancient Peoples, 1881; Mediaeval and Modern Peoples, 1883; General History, 1883; Greece, with Selected Readings, 1884; Rome, with Selected Readings, 1885; and Revised United States, 1885. She did most of the work upon Brief History of the United States, which proved a phenomenal success.
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Friedrich Matz
1843 - 1874 (31 years)
Friedrich Matz was a German archaeologist. His nephew, also named Friedrich Matz , was as well a noted archaeologist. From 1863 he studied philology and archaeology at the University of Bonn as a favored student of Otto Jahn. In 1867 he received his doctorate with a dissertation thesis on Philostratus, titled De Philostratorum in describendis imaginibus fide specimen prius. Afterwards, he took a study trip to Greece and Italy, during which time, he conducted extensive studies of ancient sarcophagi. In 1870 he was tasked by the Central Directorate of the German Archaeological Institute to create a register of ancient sarcophagi.
Go to Profile#2360
Abu'l-Fadl ibn al-Amid
912 - 970 (58 years)
Abu 'l-Fadl Muhammad ibn Abi Abdallah al-Husayn ibn Muhammad al-Katib, commonly known after his father as Ibn al-'Amid was a Persian statesman who served as the vizier of the Buyid ruler Rukn al-Dawla for thirty years, from 940 until his death in 970. His son, , also called Ibn al-'Amid, succeeded him in his office.
Go to Profile#2361
Wilhelm Neumann
1849 - 1919 (70 years)
Carl Johann Wilhelm Neumann was a Baltic German architect and art historian. Neumann's family moved to Kreutzburg during Wilhelm's childhood. When he was 15 years old, he worked as an apprentice at Paul Max Bertschy's engineering office during the construction of the Riga–Dünaburg Railway. After this he studied at the Riga Polytechnicum, and beginning 1875 at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg.
Go to Profile#2362
Dick Haymes
1918 - 1980 (62 years)
Richard Benjamin Haymes was an Argentinian singer, songwriter and actor. He was one of the most popular male vocalists of the 1940s and early 1950s. He was the older brother of Bob Haymes, an actor, television host, and songwriter.
Go to Profile#2363
Karl Voll
1867 - 1917 (50 years)
Karl Voll was German art historian specialising in Dutch renaissance and baroque art. Career Voll studied Romance languages and English at the University of Munich, and from 1889 tough at a private school in Weyarn, from 1892-96 in Freising. He later studied art history and from 1986 became a full time art critic for the Allgemeine Zeitung. In 1896 he received his doctorate in Romance Studies in Munich, and in 1900 he graduated in Art History at the University of Munich.
Go to Profile#2364
George Jessel
1898 - 1981 (83 years)
George Albert "Georgie" Jessel was an American actor, singer, songwriter, and film producer. He was famous in his lifetime as a multitalented comedic entertainer, achieving a level of recognition that transcended his limited roles in movies. He was widely known by his nickname, the "Toastmaster General of the United States," for his frequent role as the master of ceremonies at political and entertainment gatherings. Jessel originated the title role in the stage production of The Jazz Singer.
Go to Profile#2365
Edward Henry Blakeney
1869 - 1955 (86 years)
Edward Henry Blakeney was an English classical scholar and poet, born in Mitcham. He died in his hometown Winchester. Life Edward Henry Blakeney was the son of William Blakeney of Westward Ho!, a Paymaster-in-Chief in the Navy. He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1891 and M.A. in 1895. From 1895 to 1901 he was headmaster of Sir Roger Manwood's School in Sandwich, from 1901 to 1904 headmaster of Sir William Borlase's Grammar School in Marlow, and from 1904 to 1918 headmaster of King's Ely. He was an Assistant Master at Winchester College fro...
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Archie Wilmotte Leslie Bray
1883 - 1942 (59 years)
Archibald Wilmotte Leslie Bray was an English-American educator. Bray served as a founder and head of Department of Biology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute , between 1925 and his death in 1942. Bray is credited by Nobel laureate Harold Ulrey as being an inspiration for him in switching from psychology to the natural sciences. A popular teacher at several universities including University of Montana, Harvard and Rensselaer, a prominent freshman dormitory at RPI is named in his honor.
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Sam Jaffe
1891 - 1984 (93 years)
Shalom "Sam" Jaffe was an American actor, teacher, musician, and engineer. In 1951, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Asphalt Jungle . He also appeared in The Day the Earth Stood Still and Ben-Hur , and is additionally known for his roles as the titular character in Gunga Din and as the "High Lama" in Lost Horizon .
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Wilhelm Vöge
1868 - 1952 (84 years)
Wilhelm Vöge was a German art historian, the discoverer of the Reichenau School of painting and one of the most important medievalistss of the early 20th century. Whitney Stoddard called him the "father of modern stylistic analysis" for medieval art.
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Liane Haid
1895 - 2000 (105 years)
Juliane "Liane" Haid was an Austrian actress and singer. She has often been referred to as Austria's first movie star. Biography Juliane Haid was born in Vienna on 16 August 1895, the first child to Georg Haid and Juliane Haid . She had two younger sisters, Grit, who also became an actress, and Johanna .
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Peter Brown
1758 - 1799 (41 years)
Peter Brown was an English naturalist and natural history illustrator of Danish ancestry who worked mainly in London. Life and work Brown was an associate of the great English naturalists Thomas Pennant and Joseph Banks. Though primarily an illustrator, he wrote the scientific descriptions of some species, such as the brightly marked North American Arctiid moth Haploa clymene. Brown's illustrations included birds, botanical subjects and insects.
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Wolfgang Lotz
1912 - 1981 (69 years)
Wolfgang Lotz was a German art historian specialized in Italian Renaissance architecture. Life and work Lotz first studied Law in Freiburg im Breisgau and then art history at the Universities of Munich and Hamburg, where he was a student of Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich. In 1937, he completed his Ph.D. dissertation on Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola's architecture. He first worked at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, and after his return from military service he was assigned to the International Commission for Monuments in Munich. Then he worked as deputy director at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich.
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Helen Louise Babcock
1867 - 1929 (62 years)
Helen Louise B. Babcock was an American educator, elocutionist, and dramatic reader. Early years and education Helen Louise Bailey was born in Galva, Illinois. August 13, 1867. She early displayed a marked talent for elocution and on reaching woman's estate she decided to make dramatic reading her profession. With that aim she became a pupil in the Cumnock School of Oratory of the Northwestern University, and, being an earnest student, she was graduated with the highest honors.
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Wilhelm Waetzoldt
1880 - 1945 (65 years)
Wilhelm Waetzoldt was a German art historian, professor of art history in Halle, Geheimer Oberregierungsrat in the Prussian Ministry of Culture and from 1927 to 1933 general director of the Berlin State Museums.
Go to Profile#2374
Richard Sedlmaier
1890 - 1963 (73 years)
Richard Sedlmaier was a German art historian. living and working Born in Würzburg, Sedlmaier was the son of the merchant Adalbert Sedlmaier and his wife Auguste née Hagen. He grew up in Würzburg and passed his Abitur in 1909. From 1909 to 1916 he studied art history, archaeology and literary history at the universities of Munich, Wien, Berlin and Würzburg . In 1916 he was awarded the title of Dr. phil. in Würzburg with the work Grundlagen der Rokoko-Ornamentik in Frankreich doctorates. From 1917 he was curator at the Museum of Art History of the University of Würzburg. In 1923 habilitated he ...
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August Friedrich Schweigger
1783 - 1821 (38 years)
August Friedrich Schweigger was a German naturalist born in Erlangen. He was the younger brother of scientist Johann Salomo Christoph Schweigger . He studied medicine, zoology and botany at Erlangen, and following graduation spent time in Berlin and Paris . In 1809 he was appointed professor of botany and medicine at the University of Königsberg. In 1815, he was elected a corresponding member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. On a research trip to Sicily, he was murdered near Agrigento on 28 June 1821.
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William Edwards Huntington
1844 - 1930 (86 years)
William Edwards Huntington was an American university dean and president. He was born at Hillsboro, Illinois, served as private and first lieutenant in the Wisconsin Infantry in 1864–1865, and was educated at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and at Boston University , where he was dean of the College of Liberal Arts from 1884 to 1904, president of the university in 1904–1911, and dean of the graduate department after 1911. In early life he was a Methodist minister, having been ordained in 1868, and he held pastorates in Massachusetts at Nahant , Roslindale , Newton , Cambridge , and Bosto...
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Wilhelm Koehler
1884 - 1959 (75 years)
Wilhelm Reinhold Walter Koehler was a German art historian. He was a professor at the University of Jena from 1924, but moved to Harvard University in 1932 as a result of clashes with the Nazi government. Named to the William Dorr Boardman Professor of Fine Arts in 1950, he retired in 1953.
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François-Xavier Bélanger
1833 - 1882 (49 years)
François-Xavier Bélanger was a French-Canadian naturalist and museum curator. An autodidact like many naturalists of the time, he specialized in the study of Microlepidoptera. Thanks to the influence of Léon Abel Provancher and Thomas-Étienne Hamel, he became curator of the zoology museum at Université Laval, where although he did a good job of enlarging the total collection, he did so in a generally poorly organized way. He was succeeded by his assistant curator Charles-Eusèbe Dionne.
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Calvin B. T. Lee
1934 - 1983 (49 years)
Calvin Bow Tong Lee was an American educator and businessman who served as acting President of Boston University from 1970 to 1971 and Chancellor of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County from 1971 to 1976.
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Charles H. Rammelkamp
1874 - 1932 (58 years)
Charles Henry Rammelkamp was an American educator and college administrator who served as president of the Illinois College from 1905 to 1932. He was educated at Cornell University where he received a bachelor's degree in 1896 and a Ph.D. in 1900, and was a member of the Quill and Dagger Society. From 1901 to 1902, he served as an instructor in the history department of Stanford University. In 1902, he was appointed professor of history and political science in Illinois College. He was selected as president of the university in 1905 and served in that role for 27 years.
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Sophia D. Stoddard
1820 - 1891 (71 years)
Sarah D. Stoddard was an American educator who served as the fourth president of Mount Holyoke College from 1865 to 1867. She graduated from Mount Holyoke in 1841 and taught there for eight years before becoming Head.
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Lindsay Errington
1900 - Present (124 years)
Lindsay Margaret Errington is a Scottish art historian and former keeper for over 20 years at the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, where she worked to establish a representative collection of Scottish art.
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Marion Walker Spidle
1897 - 1983 (86 years)
Marion Walker Spidle was an American educator. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame. Biography Born on July 18, 1897, to parents Letford William Walker and Georgeina Young Walker, in Jersey City, New Jersey. Spidle attended public schools in New Jersey and in Tennessee, and later graduating from the University of Montevallo in 1916. She also gained a B.S. and M.A. from Columbia University, and completed Graduate Studies at the University of Oregon. Spidle worked for the Alabama Polytechnic Institute from 1928 until it became Auburn University in 1960. She worked for Auburn, from 1960 until retiring in 1966.
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Mary W. Chapin
1820 - 1889 (69 years)
Mary W. Chapin was an American educator who served as the third president of Mount Holyoke College from 1850 to 1852 and Principal from 1852 to 1865. She graduated from Mount Holyoke in 1841 and taught there for seven years before becoming Head.
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Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich
1903 - 1978 (75 years)
Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich was a German art historian specialized in Italian Renaissance art. From 1947 to 1970, he served as director of the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich. Life and work The son of a German officer, Heydenreich grew up in Dresden. He first studied art history at the University of Berlin, but moved to Hamburg in 1919 in order to study under Erwin Panofsky. In 1929, he wrote a PhD thesis entitled, "Die Sakralbau-Studien Leonardo da Vincis". In Hamburg he also wrote his Habilitationschrift, which was completed in 1934. From 1934 to 1938, he taught art history at the University of Hamburg.
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Julian Monson Sturtevant
1805 - 1886 (81 years)
Julian Monson Sturtevant was an American author and educator. He was a founding professor and second president of Illinois College. Sturtevant, son of Warren and Lucy Sturtevant, was born in Warren, Connecticut on July 26, 1805. In 1816, the family removed to the Western Reserve, and settled in Tallmadge , Ohio, whence two sons came to Yale College in 1822. Julian, the younger son, graduated in 1826. After teaching school in New Canaan, Connecticut, he entered the Yale Theological Seminary in 1828, and was ordained at Woodbury, Connecticut on August 27, 1829, as an evangelist. Four days later, he married Elizabeth M.
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Elizabeth Blanchard
1834 - 1891 (57 years)
Elizabeth Blanchard was an American educator who was the seventh president of Mount Holyoke College . Blanchard graduated from Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1858, and taught there for twelve years before becoming the Associate Principal from 1872-1883. She served as Principal from 1883-1888. When Mount Holyoke Female Seminary received its collegiate charter and became Mount Holyoke College, she served as Acting President from 1888-1889.
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Charles Baker Adams
1814 - 1853 (39 years)
Charles Baker Adams was an American educator and naturalist. Biography He was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1814, the son of Charles J. Adams and Hannah Baker. He graduated from Phillips Academy in 1830 and Amherst College in 1834 with high honors , and became an assistant to Edward Hitchcock in the Geological Survey of New York in 1836. In 1837, he became a tutor and a lecturer in geology at Amherst College. He left to become professor of chemistry and natural history at Middlebury College in 1838, remaining in that position through 1847.
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Giuseppe Fiocco
1884 - 1971 (87 years)
Giuseppe Fiocco was an Italian art historian, art critic, and academic. He is known for his research and writings on Venetian and Florentine artists. Biography Fiocco was born on 16 November 1884 in Giacciano con Baruchella, Veneto, Italy. His parents were Luigi and Maria Carpani. In 1904 he graduated with a law degree from Sapienza University of Rome. In 1908 he obtained a literature degree from the University of Bologna, where he submitted a thesis on art history; painter and art critic Igino Benvenuto Supino served as a thesis advisor. After Bologna, Fiocco returned to Sapienza University ...
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Gertrude Powicke
1887 - Present (137 years)
Gertrude Powicke was a teacher and relief worker. She was one of the first women graduates of Manchester University. She was a suffrage campaigner and worked with the Friends War Victims Relief Committee in France during the First World War.
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Oliver Marcy
1820 - 1899 (79 years)
Oliver Marcy was an American academic who served as acting president of Northwestern University twice, first from 1876 to 1881, and then again in 1890. Biography Oliver Marcy was born in Colrain, Massachusetts on February 13, 1820, the seventh of 11 children. He attended Wesleyan Academy and graduated from Wesleyan University in 1846.
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Beth Lydy
1896 - 1979 (83 years)
Beth Lydy , who also used the name Lyda Betti, was an American actress, operetta singer, writer, educator, and theatrical producer; she was the wife of violinist and broadcaster Eddy Brown. Early life Lydy was born in Indiana and raised in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, where her father John W. Lydy worked as a government teacher on a Sioux reservation. She and her sister Ruth Lydy attended school in Frankfort, Indiana, and in Chicago.
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Herbert Cook
1868 - 1939 (71 years)
Sir Herbert Frederick Cook, 3rd Baronet was an English art patron and art historian. Life Only son of Sir Frederick Cook, he was educated at Harrow School and Balliol College, Oxford. He was subsequently called to the Bar by the Inner Temple in 1895. He married in 1898 to the Honourable Mary Hood, daughter of the 2nd Viscount Bridport, with whom he had one son and two daughters.
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Christian Hülsen
1858 - 1935 (77 years)
Christian Karl Friedrich Hülsen was a German architectural historian of the classical era who later changed to studying the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Biography Hülsen was born in Berlin. He studied classical philology, ancient history and archaeology with Ernst Curtius, Johann Gustav Droysen , Emil Hübner , Johannes Vahlen , and Theodor Mommsen . His dissertation, on Ovid, was directed by Mommsen and Hübner. Through Mommsen, he was awarded a stipend from the DAI to travel to Rome where he assisted in the compilation of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum for the city of Rome. In 1904 he published his Das Forum Romanum, an important and widely translated work on the Roman Forum.
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Ernst Gall
1888 - 1958 (70 years)
Ernst Emil Max Gall was a German art historian and historic preservationist. Life Born in Danzig, Gall attended the Fürst-Otto-Gymnasium in Wernigerode and from 1907 initially studied two semesters of law at the Grenoble Alpes University and the Sorbonne. From 1908, he studied art history at the Humboldt University of Berlin. His teachers included Heinrich Wölfflin and Adolph Goldschmidt. In 1915, he was awarded a Dr. phil. by Goldschmidt at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg.
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August Wilhelm Knoch
1742 - 1818 (76 years)
August Wilhelm Knoch was a German naturalist born in Braunschweig. He was a professor of physics at Collegium Carolinum. He studied theology at the University of Leipzig. In 1775 he was hired as a caretaker at the Collegium Carolinum, during which time his interests turned to natural sciences. In 1789 he became a professor of physics.
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Rudolf von Willemoes-Suhm
1847 - 1875 (28 years)
Rudolf von Willemoes-Suhm was a German naturalist who served aboard the Challenger expedition. Willemoes-Suhm was born in Glückstadt, Duchy of Holstein. After starting to study law at the University of Bonn, Willemoes-Suhm left Bonn to study zoology at Munich under Professor Karl von Siebold. Beginning in April 1869, he studied at the University of Göttingen, and gained his doctorate there. In 1870, he moved to Kiel, where he met Professor Karl von Kupffer, and there he collected specimens in the Bay of Kiel, which he analysed for his habilitation. In 1871, Willemoes-Suhm began to lecture at the University of Munich.
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Edmund Hildebrandt
1872 - 1939 (67 years)
Edmund Hildebrandt was a German art historian. Hildebrandt was born in Berlin to businessman Georg Franz Hildebrandt and Theone Hildebrandt née Wolkoff . In 1907 he married teacher Ottilie Schlesinger in a civil ceremony, despite Ottilie being from a well known Jewish merchant family. The couple had a son in 1909, Franz, and moved into the affluent Charlottenburg area of Berlin. Hildebrandt considered himself a pantheist, and his son Franz Hildebrandt later became a renowned theologian and pastor. Hildebrandt suffered from agoraphobia, which manifested itself in his choice of small auditori...
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Godefridus Johannes Hoogewerff
1884 - 1963 (79 years)
Godefridus Johannes Hoogewerff was a Dutch art historian. Life Born in Amersfoort and studying in that town's gymnasium, from 1903 to 1908 he studied at the University of Utrecht, during which time he catalogued the manuscripts of that city's Aartsbischoppelijk Museum. In 1909 he made his first visit to Rome, basing himself at the Nederlands Historisch Instituut te Rome whilst he researched his doctoral dissertation on Dutch painters working in Italy in the 16th century, supervised by Willem Vogelsang, whose assistant Hoogewerff had become in 1908. He gained his doctorate in 1912 but stayed o...
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Jan Gerrit van Gelder
1903 - 1980 (77 years)
Jan Gerrit van Gelder was a Dutch art historian. Life and work Van Gelder was the son of the archivist and museum director, Hendrik Enno van Gelder. He grew up in The Hague. In 1923, he began studying art history at the University of Utrecht. In 1924 he was appointed by the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, where he worked as an assistant and later as curator in the print room and the library. In 1933, he completed his Ph.D. dissertation under Willem Vogelsang on Jan van de Velde. In 1936, he was appointed lecturer in art history at Leiden University and in 1940 acting director of the Netherlands Institute for Art History in The Hague.
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