Henry Mayer; Historian, Writer

Henry Mayer, 59, a teacher, historian and critic probably best known for his award-winning book “All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of American Slavery.” A native New Yorker who grew up in North Carolina, Mayer graduated from the University of North Carolina with honors in 1963 and earned a master’s degree in U.S. history from UC Berkeley in 1965. After teaching history at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., he taught American history and literature at the Urban School of San Francisco and was its acting director in 1977 and 1978. He began writing full time in the late 1970s. A review of “All on Fire” in the Washington Post called the book a “remarkable study” and said that “for the first time, Garrison’s role in mobilizing Northern public opinion against slavery gets the detailed and nuanced scrutiny it deserves.” Mayer also wrote “A Son of Thunder: Patrick Henry and the American Republic” and “As It Happened: A History of the United States.” At his death, he was working on a biography of photographer Dorothea Lange. A member of the National Book Critics Circle and the Bay Area Book Reviewers Assn., Mayer also wrote book reviews for a number of publications, including the New York Times. On Monday of a heart attack while on vacation at Glacier National Park in Montana.