Guthe 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 PhD from the University of Marburg in 1892 for a thesis entitled: Über das mechanische Telephon. Guthe was the nephew of Hermann Adolph Wilhelm Guthe, a noted German geographer, non-fiction author and professor in Hanover and Munich.
Career
Guthe immigrated to the United States in the summer of 1892 to marry Clara Belle Ware, from Grand Rapids, Michigan. The couple met during Ware's visit to Germany in 1890-91. 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, D.C.. In 1905 he accepted an invitation to become Professor of Physics and Chairman of the Physics Department at the University of Iowa. Guthe was a member of the jury of awards at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904 and was vice president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1908. In 1909 the University of Michigan solicited Guthe to return as a full Professor in the Physics Department, and he moved back to Ann Arbor with his young family. 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 sent Dean Guthe as the University delegate to annual meetings of the Association of American Universities, and the Association of State Universities, held that August at the University of California, Berkeley. After participating in both meetings in late August, Dean and Mrs. Guthe 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. Guthe's youngest son, Dr. Otto E. Guthe, became an Assistant Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Guthe's oldest son, Dr. Carl E. Guthe, was the first Chair of the University of Michigan's Department of Anthropology, and one of the latter's sons, Dr. Karl F. Guthe, was a professor of Zoology at the University of Michigan. Guthe's middle child, Ida Belle Guthe, married German city planner and author Werner Hegemann.
Books by Guthe
Dr. Guthe is the author of a Manual of Physical Measurements, with J. O. Reed; Laboratory Exercises with Primary and Storage Cells ; Textbook of Physics ; College Physics, with J. O. Reed; Definitions in Physics ; as well as a multitude of articles on physics and electricity published in various scientific journals.
