Ernest G. Sihler Papers
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Abstract
The Ernest G. Sihler Papers consist of notebooks and other materials generated by Classicist and New York University Latin Professor Ernest G. Sihler (1853-1942). The collection is made up primarily of notebooks containing handwritten notes on Classical subjects made to augment Sihler's scholarship and teaching; the notebooks are often written in a combination of English, Latin, and Ancient Greek, and his earliest student notebooks are in German. The collection also contains manuscripts and a small amount of correspondence.
Biographical Note
Ernest G. Sihler was born in 1853, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, one of nine children. His father, Wilhelm von Sihler (born in Silesia in 1801), had studied to become a lecturer in Modern Literature, but after teaching for a short time in Dresden and Riga chose to become a Lutheran pastor. He then immigrated to the United States in 1843 to serve as a missionary to Germans who had settled in the Midwest; in 1846 he married Susannah Kern and took over the directorship of the Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne. Ernest Sihler attended the Concordia Gymnasium of Fort Wayne, a Lutheran School of the German model, where he studied Latin, Greek and the Classics. He continued his studies at the Divinity School at St. Louis from 1869 to 1872, but decided to pursue a career in the Classics rather than Theology. He studied Classical Philology at the University of Berlin and the University of Leipzig from 1872 to 1875, and was a Fellow in Greek at John Hopkins University from 1876 to 1879, receiving a Ph.D. in 1878. In 1879 Sihler moved to New York City, where he taught at the Dr. Sachs Collegiate Institute and worked as a tutor. He married Emily Birkner in 1881. In 1891 he returned to the Midwest to teach at Concordia College in Milwaukee for one year, returning to New York in 1892 to take a professorship in Latin at New York University, where he remained until 1923. He died in New York in 1942.
Arrangement
The materials are arranged in rough chronological order.
Scope and Content Note
The Ernest G. Sihler Papers consist primarily of notes taken by Sihler in the course of his scholarship and teaching. Most of the notes were handwritten in bound notebooks, although some materials were bound after the fact. The notebooks are written in Latin, English, and Ancient Greek, with the earliest written in German. The collection also contains a small amount of visual material (photographs and copies of Sihler's drawings), manuscripts, correspondence, and student work.
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Access Restrictions
Material pertaining to individual student records may be restricted in accordance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Please contact the Archives with specific questions regarding access to such records.
Use Restrictions
This collection is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use materials in the collection in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Preferred Citation
Published citations should take the following form: Identification of item, date (if known); The Ernest G. Sihler Papers; MC 67; box number; folder number; New York University Archives; New York University.
Location of Materials
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements note
Some of the notebooks are in poor condition with decaying or missing bindings. A few of the notebooks have been temporarily removed for conservation to the Bobst Library's Preservation Lab.