Background
Rudolf Karl-Richard Ruedemann was born on October 16, 1864, in Georgenthal, Germany. He was one of the three children of Albert and Franziska Seebach Ruedemann.
University of Jena, Jena, Thuringia, Germany
Ruedemann attended the University of Jena, where he studied mathematics with Gustav Steinmann and biology with Johannes Walther. He soon became interested in geology. His doctoral dissertation, Contact Metamorphose an der Reuth, was written in response to a problem in petrography assigned by Steinmann's successor, Ernst Kalkowsky. Ruedemann received the degree magna cum laude in 1887.
University of Jena, Jena, Thuringia, Germany
Ruedemann attended the University of Jena, where he studied mathematics with Gustav Steinmann and biology with Johannes Walther. He soon became interested in geology. His doctoral dissertation, Contact Metamorphose an der Reuth, was written in response to a problem in petrography assigned by Steinmann's successor, Ernst Kalkowsky. Ruedemann received the degree magna cum laude in 1887.
University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, Grand Est, France
Ruedemann obtained a second doctorate in 1889 from France's University of Strasbourg where he was an assistant in geology from 1887 to 1892.
geologist paleontologist scientist
Rudolf Karl-Richard Ruedemann was born on October 16, 1864, in Georgenthal, Germany. He was one of the three children of Albert and Franziska Seebach Ruedemann.
Despite the fact that Ruedemann’s family was extremely poor (which may explain Ruedemann’s later frugality), he nevertheless was able to enroll in the University of Jena, where he studied mathematics with Gustav Steinmann and biology with Johannes Walther. He soon became interested in geology. His doctoral dissertation, Contact Metamorphose an der Reuth, was written in response to a problem in petrography assigned by Steinmann's successor, Ernst Kalkowsky. Ruedemann received the degree magna cum laude in 1887; Kalkowsky had recommended that he be given a summa cum laude, but Ruedemann, in an early exhibition of the tactlessness that marked his career, unwisely opposed a favorite theory of his examining professor in chemistry. Haeckel, a friend of both, intervened to calm the antagonists. He earned his second doctorate in 1889 from the University of Strasbourg.
From 1887 until 1892 Ruedemann had tenure at the University of Strasbourg. In the latter year, he immigrated to the United States, where he first taught science in the high schools of Lowville and Dolgeville, New York. When John Mason Clarke succeeded James Hall as a state paleontologist, however, he hired Ruedemann as his assistant, and Ruedemann began working at the New York State Museum in Albany in March 1899. Ruedemann himself succeeded Clarke as state paleontologist in 1925, and held this position until his retirement in 1937, although he continued to do research until 1942.
Ruedemann investigated the geology and paleontology of the principal valleys of New York, especially the Mohawk, where the Ordovician shales and limestones offered abundant and varied invertebrate fossils, many of which were previously undescribed. In particular, his interest was attracted by the enigmatic graplolites, which he began to study while he was teaching in Dolgeville. The material that he collected included complete growth series of Diplograptus - the first known for a graptolite (1897).
Graptolites increasingly became Ruedemann’s chief paleontological concern, and his monumental “Graptolites of North America,” published in 1947, marked the culmination of his career. He also attained an international reputation as a paleontologist through his researches on eurypterids (extinct arthropods unique to New York State) and did notable work on radiolarian cherts, nautiloid cephalopods, Paleozoic plankton, and a number of problematic fossils.
In structural geology, Ruedemann’s study of the exotic Rysedorph conglomerate fauna (1901) led him to suggest, in 1909, that the present position of the deformed Taconic rocks had been the result of a far-ranging westward thrust - a view now universally accepted. He thus introduced into American geology the concepts of nappe and thrust that had been so successful in Alpine geology, as demonstrated in the work of M. A. Bertrand, Hans Schardt, M. Lugeon, and A. Heim. Ruedemann’s studies, together with those of Arthur Keith, therefore led to the ultimate resolution of the complex controversy surrounding the Taconic rocks which had long vexed American geologists.
He also published stratigraphic and areal studies of the Thousand Islands (1910), Saratoga Springs (1914), the Capital District (1930), and the Catskills (1942). As a technical innovation, he introduced copper electroplating of fragile gutta-percha castings of fossils, from which molds might be obtained.
(Volume 2)
1912(No. 525)
1912Ruedemann was a member and vice-president (1916) of the Geological Society of America. He was also a member, vice-president (1911), and president (1916) of the Paleontological Society. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1928.
Since Ruedemann grew up in the family with unfortunate financial standing, his personality was later marked with modesty and frugality.
Ruedemann was married to Elizabeth Heitzmann and they had one daughter and six sons.