"Louis G. Geiger was born on March 21, 1913, in Boonville, Missouri, to George Victor Geiger and Dorothea Elizabeth Hoflander. He received a Bachelor of Science degree at Central Missouri State University in 1934 and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Missouri in 1940.
He was drafted into the army in the spring of 1942, and in December of that year was admitted to OCS (Officer Candidate School) Antiaircraft Artillery, Camp Davis, in Wilmington, North Carolina. He was promoted to First Lieutenant in March of 1945. While stationed in Florence, Italy, Geiger was assigned to the Fifth Army Historical Section and wrote Volume XI of the History of the Fifth Army, From the Apennines to the Alps. He was discharged from the army on May 24, 1946, and married Helen Margery Watson on December 20, 1946. They had one son, Mark.
Geiger was an Assistant professor of history at the University of North Dakota from 1946-1955, an Associate professor from 1955-1958, and full professor from 1958-1960. He was a visiting professor at the University of Missouri in 1960; Jadavpur University in India from 1963-1964, and a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Helsinki in Finland from 1954-1955, and at the University of Leningrad in the former Soviet Union from 1978-1979.
He became the president of the North Dakota Social Science Association from 1959-1960. From 1960-1970, he was Chairman for history at Iowa State University from 1972-1979, becoming Professor Emeritus in 1979.
Geiger wrote numerous articles and reviews, and authored a number of books, including Joseph W. Folk of Missouri, in 1953; Higher Education in a Maturing Democracy, 1963; and Voluntary Accreditation: History of North Central Association, 1970. He also wrote numerous papers and lectured extensively. Two of his papers included: 'St. Johannes Deutsche Evangelische Kirche (St. John German Evangelical Church), Oak Grove, Billingsville', 1991, 'In the Days of Prohibition, Cooper County 1919-1934,' 1992, and 'The Jazz Age In Cooper County, Missouri: the 1920s', 1993. He was the recipient of a research award from the Social Science Research Council in 1963; a member of the Western Social Science Association, acting as vice-president from 1965-1966, and again in 1968-1969. He was a member of the American History Association, American Studies Association, and the History Education Society. Geiger was also an active Rotarian. In his later years, he traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia. Geiger died on December 15, 2002."
Source: State Historical Society of Missouri - https://collections.shsmo.org/manuscripts/columbia/c4058.pdf
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