Mayer, Gerhard (1902-1983) | Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Name: Mayer, Gerhard (1902-1983)

Historical Note:

Gerhard Mayer was born on January 8, 1902 in Strasbourg, France. Mayer is recorded as having lived in Germany in 1935 and immigrated to the United States by 1938, when he married Ruth Jarschauer (1911-2000) in New York. The couple shared two children.

An accountant by profession, Mayer was a noted bibliophile who began his collecting, particularly on Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), in the early 1960s. He was also a member of the Caxton Club and the Cliff Dwellers.

Mayer died on May 27, 1983 and is buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Urbana, IL.

Sources:

“Death Notices: Mayer.” Chicago Tribune, May 28, 1983. ProQuest.

Find a Grave. "Gerhard Mayer." Accessed July 1, 2026. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/248261224/gerhard-mayer.

Petitions for Naturalization from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1897-1944, NAID 575701. Records of District Courts of the United States, RG 21. National Archives, Washington, DC.

Note Author: Dana Miller

Records or Manuscript Collections Created by Mayer, Gerhard