Biesele, Rudolph Leopold, 1886-1960

Rudolph L. Biesele was born January 29, 1886 in York's Creek, Texas and died in Austin on January 4th, 1960. A full-time history professor at the University of Texas at Austin, with a passion for his German heritage, he devoted most of his life to the research and writing of early German settlements in Texas.

In his youth, Biesele was educated in Guadalupe County public schools. He received his teaching certificate from Southwest Texas State Normal School (now Southwest Texas State University) in 1905. He then attended the University of Texas (UT) in Austin where he received a B.A. (1909) and M.A. (1910) in German. Biesele taught German and Civics at Corsicana High School, and history at Waco High School, before moving to Austin in 1924. At UT Austin he earned a PhD in History (1928); the subject of his dissertation was The History of the German Settlements in Texas 1831-1861 . In 1929 the University of Alabama hired him to teach Latin American History; he returned to UT Austin History Department in 1930 as a temporary substitute for C.W. Hackett. Later in that year Biesele moved once more, and became chairman of the Department of History and Social Science at Louisiana Polytechnical Institute. He returned to Austin in 1931 where he remained for the rest of this life. His initial appointment at UT Austin was as an associate professor in the history department; after ten years, he was made a professor in 1941 and retired as professor emeritus in 1957.

...