Alfred G. Mayer (Alfred Goldsborough Mayor; April 16, 1868 – June 24, 1922) was an American marine biologist and zoologist, whose fascination with medusae (jellyfish) marked a turning point for biology. Despite Mayor's interest in the sea, his first voyage began during his twenty-fourth year of life.[1] Because of his German 'heritage', "[...]he altered it (his last name) to "Mayor" in order to dissociate himself from his Germanic roots".[1] Mayor is also greatly known for his many publications and papers in which he wrote about topics ranging from physics to hunting and fishing.
Mayor was born in Frederick, Maryland, the son of Katherine Duckett (Goldsborough) and Alfred Marshall Mayer.[2] He was of part German descent. Dropping out from school at age sixteen, he began to work in a machinist's shop. To please the request of his father, Alfred enrolled in the Stevens Institute of Technology. After many years of physics-related work in several universities, Mayor left his position to pursue a career in natural history, a great interest of his. Professor Lucian I. Blake, one of Mayor's many mentors and professor of University of Kansas, stated that," [Alfred was] successful in Physics,...his true taste and longings were toward natural history." In 1897, he graduated from Harvard University with a Sc.D.[3]
Mayor's most recognized work originated from his work as a successful marine biologist. He published his first book about jellyfish in 1910 titled Medusae of the World, which documented his many studies of species of jellyfish around the world.
In 1907 Mayor founded the Tortugas Laboratory on Garden Key (today Fort Jefferson National Monument), maintained by the Carnegie Institution for Science, where each summer marine biologists studied the life of the coral reef.[4] He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1914.[5] Mayor died on nearby Loggerhead Key, Dry Tortugas, aged 54.[1]
With his wife, artist and sculptor Harriet Randolph Hyatt Mayor, Mayor was the father of art historian A. Hyatt Mayor, and the great-grandfather of actress Yeardley Smith.
