Background
He was born in Hanover, Germany, and was educated at the Hanover Technical School and at the universities of Strassburg, Berlin, and Marburg.
He was born in Hanover, Germany, and was educated at the Hanover Technical School and at the universities of Strassburg, Berlin, and Marburg.
He was born in Hanover, Germany, and was educated at the Hanover Technical School and at the universities of Strassburg, Berlin, and Marburg. He received his Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Marburg in 1892 for a thesis entitled: Ueber das Mechanische Telephone (On the Mechanical Telephone).
Guthe immigrated to the United States in the summer of 1892 to marry Clara Belle Ware (1867-1947), from Grand Rapids, Michigan. The couple met during Ware"s visit to Germany in 1890-1891. In 1893 he obtained a position as instructor in physics at the University of Michigan, and in 1900 was promoted to Assistant Professor.
In 1903, Guthe took a position as Assistant Physicist at the then newly established National Bureau of Standards in Washington, District of Columbia In 1905 he accepted an invitation to become Professor of Physics and Chairman of the Physics Department at the University of Iowa.
In 1912 Guthe was named Dean of the newly formed Graduate School at the University of Michigan. In 1915 the University of Michigan"s Board of Regents designated Dean Guthe as the University delegate to attend annual meetings of the Association of American Universities, and the Association of State Universities, being held that August at the University of California in Berkeley.
After participating in both meetings in late August, Dean Guthe and Clara took a train north, up the coast for a brief visit with Clara"s older brother in Ashland, Oregon, before returning for the 1915 academic year at UMI. In Ashland, he became afflicted with an intestinal disorder, and died September 10, shortly after a second surgery. Guthe"s son, Carl Eugen Guthe (1893-1974), was the first Chair of the University of Michigan"s Department of Anthropology, and the latter"s son, Karl F. Guthe (1918-1994), was a professor of Zoology at the University of Michigan.
Guthe was a member of the jury of awards at the Saint Louis Exposition in 1904 and was vice president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1908.
Married Clara Belle Ware, 1892.