Nathaniel Schmidt - Background

Background

Schmidt was born at Hudiksvall Municipality, in the historical province of Hälsingland, Gävleborg County, Sweden. His parents were Lars Peter Anderson and Fredericka Wilhelmina Schmidt. Taking his mother’s name upon adult emancipation, Professor Schmidt married Miss Ellen Alfvén, of Stockholm, Sweden on September 26, 1887. She was the daughter of Anders Alfvén and Charlotta Christina Axelson Puke. Professor and Mrs. Schmidt’s daughter, Dagmar A. Schmidt, Cornell Class of 1918, (Mrs. Oliver S. Wright, b. 1896), lived in Rockville Center, New York, at the time of the Professor’s death (1939). Professor Schmidt was an avid rower, swimmer and hiker. He lived on Ithaca’s Six Mile Creek.

He received his primary and secondary education at the Hudiksvall Gymnasium, graduating in 1882. He studied scientific and linguistic studies at the University of Stockholm from 1882 to 1884. In the summer of 1884 he emigrated to the United States and entered Hamilton Theological Seminary (Colgate University), from which he took his master of arts in 1887. In 1887 Schmidt received his master of arts from Colgate University, the same year he took a degree from Hamilton Theological Seminary. During 1896, he studied Ethiopic and Arabic literature, history and theology, at the University of Berlin, studying under scholars such as August Dillmann, Eberhard Schrader, Friedrich Dieterici, Otto Pfleiderer, and Adolf von Harnack. The Jewish Institute of Religion conferred Professor Schmidt a doctorate of Hebrew letters in 1931. Benjamin N. Cardozo was the commencement speaker.