• Date of Birth: November 7, 1847
  • Born City: Gotha
  • Born State/Country: Germany
  • Parents: Justin Ehwald, master saddler, & wife.
  • Date of Death: July 13, 1927
  • Death City: Gotha
  • Death State/Country: Germany
  • Education:

    : Ernestinum, Gotha; Study at Jena, Leipzig & Göttingen; Ph.D., 1871. 

  • Professional Experience:

    Teacher, Ernestinum, 1871-82; professor, 1882-1911; honorary director, Herzogliche Library, Gotha, 1899-1911; director, 1911-21; corr. memb., Göttingen Academy of Sciences, 1919.

  • Publications:

    “Gedächtnisrede auf Otto Schneider: in der Aula des Gymnasium Ernestinum am 9. Juni 1880 gehalten,” in Programm des Herzoglichen Gymnasium Ernestinum zu Gotha, 1881, 1–10; “Gedächtnisrede auf Joachim Marquardt gehalten,” in Programm des Herzoglichen Gymnasium Ernestinum zu Gotha: als Einladung zu der ... stattfindenden Entlassung der Abiturienten, 1883, 3–17; Publius Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses: cum emendationis summario, (ed.) vol. 2 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1883); Publius Ovidius Naso, Tristia. Ibis. Ex Ponto Libri Fasti, (ed.), vol. 3 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1884); Publius Ovidius Naso, Amores. Epistulae. Medicamina faciei. Ars amatoria. Remedia amoris (ed.) vol. 1, (Leipzig: Teubner, 1888); “Beschreibung der Handschriften und Inkunabeln der Herzogl. Gymnasialbibliothek zu Gotha: nebst vier Briefen von Eobanus Hessus, Melanchthon und Niclas von Amsdorff,” in Programm des Herzoglichen Gymnasium Ernestinum zu Gotha, 1892/93, [3]–20; Kritische Beiträge zu Ovids Epistulae ex Ponto (Gotha: F. A. Perthes 1896); “Geschichte der Gothaer Bibliothek,” in Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, 18 (1901) 434–63; “Gotha in der Dichtung des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts,” in Mitteilungen der Vereinigung für Gothaische Geschichte und Altertumsforschung 1905, 58–84; Aldhelmi Opera (ed.), Monumenta Germaniae Hstorica, 15, 3 vols. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1913–19); Luthers Sendschreiben an Papst Leo X. und sein Büchlein von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen (Weimar: Gesellschaft der Bibliophilen, 1917).

    >Bibliography: Hermann Ullrich: Arbeiten Rudolf Ehwalds. In: Mitteilungen des Vereins für Gothaische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, 1928, S. 49–56.

  • Notes:

    Ehwald’s early education took place in his native Gotha, which, aside from graduate school and three summer trips to Europe, he never left. He taught for four decades at the Gymnasium where he had been a student. That school and the local library provided him with manuscripts of Ovid by which he is best known to classicists. He also studied the literary and archaeological sources of the Laocöon story. The local libraries also provided manuscripts and incunabula related to Gotha, which became the sources of the library’s collection of “Gothana.” While teaching a full complement of classes at the Ernestinum, he served as honorary director of the library on a volunteer basis until in 1911 he was made salaried director. Ehwald resigned his teaching duties and turned his focus almost exclusively to local history, including his history of the Gotha library. Throughout his career he wrote essays and gave speeches on figures from Melancthon to Bismarck.

  • Sources:

    W. Schmidt-Ehwald, Zeitschrift für Bibliotekswesen 44 (1927) 612-19; Behrend Pick, “Rudolf Ehwald (1847–1927)” in Mitteilungen des Vereins für Gothaische Geschichte und Altertumsforschung, 1928, 46–9; Alexandra Habermann et al., Lexikon deutscher wissenschaftlicher Bibliothekare 1925–1980, (Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann, 1985), 67; Helmut Roob, Günter Scheffler: Gothaer Persönlichkeiten: Taschenlexikon, 2nd ed. (Limenau: Rhino-Verlag, 2006).

  • Author: Ward Briggs