Gideonse was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, to Martin Cornelius and Johanna Jacoba Helena Magdalena (de Lange) Gideonse.[3] His family emigrated to the United States in 1904, settling in Rochester, New York, where Gidonese attended elementary school.[4][1][5][6]
He married Edmee Koch, of Geneva, Switzerland.[7] They had two sons.[8]
Gideonse was the second President of Brooklyn College, from 1939 to 1966.[2][8][9] During his tenure Brooklyn College was one of the top colleges in the US in terms of the number of alumni receiving doctorate degrees.[8] In the 1940s Gideonse made novel changes in the college curriculum with a greater emphasis on electives, an approach that later became standard in colleges.[12] In May 1983, Brooklyn College renamed its library in his honor.[8][4]
Gideonse wrote Transfert des réparations et le plan Dawes (1928), The International Bank,The Higher Learning in a Democracy,The Economic Policy of the United States, Introductory General Course in the Study of Contemporary Society (1939), American Policy in Indonesia (1949), The economic foreign policy of the United States (1953), On the Educational Statesmanship of a Free Society (1959), Against the Running Tide (1967), and The Year 2000: The Future Planners and Education (1969), and co-wrote a number of other books.[8][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]
Gideonse, who had lived in Great Neck, New York, and in East Setauket, New York, died on March 12, 1985, at the age of 83 in the Port Jefferson New York Nursing Home, three weeks after his wife died.[22][8]
