Finding aid for the Carl Albert Helmecke Papers

Biography of Carl Albert Helmecke

Carl Albert Helmecke was born in Braunschweig, Germany on January 30, 1890. He immigrated to the United States with his family in 1902 and lived briefly in Norwood, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati. The Helmecke family then moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Helmecke attended the University of Michigan graduating in 1912. He began work on his Ph.D. at Syracuse University, and later completed his degree at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1915, he accepted his first full-time teaching appointment at Upper Iowa University, and during World War I, he directed the military training program at Upper Iowa.

In 1920, he began teaching at Western Sate College in Gunnison, Colorado, where he remained until 1955. While at Gunnison, Helmecke took a sabbatical during the 1937-1938 school year and served as an exchanged professor at the University of Berlin. Upon retiring at Gunnison, Carl moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, and taught for the next seven years at Del Mar College, retiring for the second time in 1962. He continued to teach in the Corpus Christi area at Incarnate Word Academy Christopher College, and the University of Corpus Christi. In 1975, at the age of 85, Carl ended his formal teaching career. He died on June 8, 1984 in Denison, Texas.

Scope and Content

This collection deals mainly with Carl A. Helmecke's sabbatical in Germany during 1937 and 1938. The collection includes correspondence with his family, souvenirs including maps and tour guide books, tickets and receipts from places to which he traveled in Germany along with school calendars and schedules from his experiences teaching at the University of Berlin. Helmecke's collection provides first-hand accounts of living in Hitler's Germany. There is also some correspondence from later in Helmecke's life along with an oral history interview completed in 1984 shortly before his death.

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Access

This collection is open for research.

Also see the papers of Carl Helmecke's family - the
Helmecke papers, GA-09-04

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

Subjects:

Preferred Citation

The preferred form of citation for this collection is: Cite specific item as appropriate, Carl Albert Helmecke papers, 1898-1984, GA-06-01, Archives and Rare Books Library, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Detailed Description of The Collection