Herman Baer (born of Jewish parents in Herxheim, Germany, Jan. 29, 1830; died Charleston, South Carolina, Jan. 2, 1901) was a German-American author. He emigrated to America when a lad of seventeen, and settled in Charleston, where he obtained employment as compositor and proof-reader in the office of the ''Southern Christian Advocate'' in 1848, in which year, too, he joined the

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

Church. Baer taught German, French, and general topics in private families, and in 1852 became a teacher in the preparatory department of

Wofford College Wofford College is a private liberal arts college in Spartanburg, South Carolina. It was founded in 1854. The campus is a national arboretum and one of the few four-year institutions in the southeastern United States founded before the America ...

(Methodist), in

Spartanburg Spartanburg is a city in and the seat of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States. The city of Spartanburg has a municipal population of 38,732 as of the 2020 census, making it the 11th-largest city in the state. For a time, the Offi ...

, S. C., from which institution he himself graduated in 1858. In 1861 he took the degree of M. D. from the Charleston Medical College, and served as surgeon through the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

, on the close of which he engaged in business as a wholesale druggist in Charleston. Throughout his life Baer never lost his taste for literature, and he was a frequent contributor to church papers. Although a foreigner, he early acquired such a mastery of English as to be considered in his neighborhood an authority on English style. He married three times. In 1888 the Methodist Church Publishing House produced a book by Baer, entitled "Jewish Ceremonials."

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Baer, H 1830 births 1901 deaths American religious writers Wofford College alumni Medical University of South Carolina alumni German emigrants to the United States Converts to Methodism from Judaism