George H. Asher Collection

The George Harry Asher collection consists of six series, holding documents, correspondence and writings related to George Harry Asher. The last two series are devoted to specific persons from Asher's life: his wife Esther Lea Asher and his close friend, the famous German writer Oskar Maria Graf.

The collection documents the work and life of Asher in several ways. Advertising proofs, as part of his professional career in Czechoslovakia and the U.S. can be found in Series I. Documents regarding his career are also part of Series IV; their focus is on Asher's first jobs in Czechoslovakia, i.e. employment contracts, as well as some documents concerning his career in the U.S.

Private information can be found in his autobiographical draft in Series II, along with poems, essays and the record of a dream. Most of the private information found there and in the documents of Series IV shed a light on Asher's time in Czechoslovakia, his escape from France and first years in the U.S. Notable expectations are several of his college papers, which he kept from his time at Brooklyn College. There are many essays and poems in the collection, but they are mostly undated. Series I also contains watercolor drawings by Asher, along with photographs.

Prominent among the documents in the collection is the correspondence with his mother in 1941, before she was deported and killed. It can be found in Series III. The other correspondence gives a good impression of Asher's later life, including both personal information and his political views.

Due to the original order, established by George Asher himself, the collection holds two series solely concerned with specific persons. These series deal with personal matters of the specific person, but they also have a strong emphasis on the person's relation to Asher.

Series V is dedicated to Esther Lea Asher. Prominent in this section is official correspondence from the period, when she was trying to leave Germany between 1939 and 1940. There is little material documenting her later life.

Original writings by Asher’s close friend Oskar Maria Graf as well as their correspondence can be found in Series VI. After Graf's death, Asher was contacted by various researches seeking information about the writer; most of this correspondence is also in Series VI. Asher's Correspondence with Gerhard Bauer about Graf, however, has been kept in Series III, in keeping with the original order of the material.