Katharine Meyer Graham was born on June 16, 1917, in New York City, the fourth child of Eugene Meyer and Agnes Ernst Meyer. She had a very upper-class upbringing thanks to her incredibly successful investor father who had a second career in politics and a third in newspaper publishing after he purchased the then-failing Washington Post. Katharine’s mother, Agnes, was a powerhouse art patron and philanthropist (with a spicy side of political activism) while maybe not the fuzziest of maternal figures, she was a product of her times and class.
From the family’s primary home base in Washington, DC, Katharine was educated at the finest schools and began a career in journalism after graduating from the University of Chicago. She did work at the family business, The Washington Post, but got bumped to a motherhood/society life-track after she married Phillip Graham and he took over the Post.
After Philip’s death in 1963, 46-year-old Katharine stepped in as the new publisher at the family business as a placeholder for her son, Donald, who was in college. She was just going to keep the chair warm until he could take over and get back to a life outside the working world…yadda yadda…nearly 30 incredible and successful years later, she stepped down and Donald did take over.
That “yadda yadda” consisted of a very rapid education in the hot seat of a newspaper during a tumultuous time in American history. Her first big story was President Kennedy’s assassination, followed by the Johnson administration, the Vietnam War, and a couple of big scandals history remembers as the Pentagon Papers and Watergate. The Washington Post, and Katharine, were at the epicenter of all of them, and that was just the first ten years, and we go into a lot of detail of those stories and the world around her.
Katharine became the first female CEO of a Fortune 500 company but also the most powerful woman in media history (and, arguably, in Washington.) Her list of accomplishments is extensive and she left a legacy as an icon of resilience and determination, as well as embodying the belief that a cantankerous, vibrant, and free press is crucial to the very principles of democracy.
Katharine Graham died on July 14th, 2001 at 84 years old. She is buried in Oak Hill Cemetary in Washington, DC.
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Books!
Web!
Deadspin article declares that Katharine was not to be effed with, and former employees have their say in what she was like from the Graham Holdings website.
Katharine’s feminist journey from the Women’s Media Center ( when we know better we do better!)
So you want to learn more about the Pentagon Papers or Watergate? How about heading over to those links at the National Archives for a start?
How about those Nixon tapes? This site has the audio and transcripts: nixontapes.org!
What happened to her Georgetown house after her death? The New York Times has a story on that.
Newsweek article about women in revolt, the lawsuit brought by female employees at Newsweek on the very day that their cover story about the women’s liberation movement ran. Prime has an excellent series about this that sadly didn’t get renewed for a second season called Good Girl’s Revolt.
Speaking of revolts, here’s the history of “Luddites” from PMpress.org.
Lyndon Johnson also had moments on tape about his feelings of the press…in his inimitable style, from University of Virginia Presidential Tapes.
The looong history of the Equal Rights Amendment, thank you Alice Paul, you did your best!
Article in the Washington Post about the pressman’s strike in 1975 (and a lot of pictures we can’t post here due to copyright.)
Norah Ephron summed up Katharine’s autobiography here (because we will take every excuse to link you to anything Norah Ephron wrote.)
More information on her funeral from the New York Times
Moving Pictures!
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