Jane Mayer - Early Life

Early Life

Mayer was born in New York City. Her mother, Meredith (née Nevins), was a painter, former president of the Manhattan Graphics Center, and a printer, and her father, William Mayer, was a composer. Her paternal great-great-grandfather was Emanuel Lehman, one of the founders of Lehman Brothers, and her maternal grandparents were historian Allan Nevins and Mary Fleming (Richardson). Allan Nevins, in several books about the Rockefeller family (including the authorized biography of John D. Rockefeller), held Rockefeller and similar figures up as heroes of American capitalism.

Mayer studied at Bedales School, at one time.

Mayer is a 1973 graduate of Fieldston and a 1977 graduate of Yale University, where she was a campus stringer for Time magazine. She continued her studies at Oxford University.