Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Kiefer, Herman

KIEFER, Herman, physician, b. in Salzburg, Baden, Germany, 19 Nov., 1825. He was educated at Freiburg, Mannheim, and Carlsruhe, and studied medicine at Freiburg, Heidelberg, Prague, and Vienna, being graduated by the state board of examiners at Carlsruhe. He served as surgeon in the volunteer regiment of Emmendingen during the revolution of 1849, taking part in the battle of Philippsburg and Upstadt. He came to this country in September, 1849, and settled in Detroit, where he has since practised medicine. He has been actively interested in German-American affairs, and was a founder of the German-American seminary, of which he was president and treasurer from 1861 till 1872. In 1866-'7 he was a member of the Detroit board of education, and in 1882 he became a member of the public library commission, being re-elected in 1883 for a term of six years, and adding to the library a large collection of German works. He was chairman of the German Republican executive committee of Utica in 1854, a presidential elector in 1872, and a delegate to the Republican national convention of Cincinnati in 1876. In 1883 he was appointed by President Arthur U. S. consul to Stettin, which office he held till he resigned in 1885. He prepared valuable articles, which were published in the U. S. consular reports, and include “American Trade with Stettin,” “How Germany is Governed,” and “Labor in Europe.”