Eugene Meyer (October 31, 1875–July 17, 1959), a wealthy
financier and public official, purchased the Washington
Post at a bankruptcy sale in 1933 and laid the foundation
for it to become one of the nation’s most important newspapers. Although The Post did not attain this stature until his
daughter, Katharine Graham, took over following the death
of both her father and her husband, Philip S. Graham, Meyer’s vision for the newspaper led to its ultimate success.
Meyer was born in Los Angeles, California, on October 31, 1875, to Eugene Meyer, a prosperous Jewish immigrant from Alsace-Lorraine, France, and Harriet Newmark
Meyer. He attended the University of California for one
year and then enrolled in Yale University where he graduated in two years with a Phi Beta Kappa key at the age of
nineteen. After working in his father’s international banking firm and studying finance in Europe, he bought his own
seat on the New York Stock Exchange in 1901 when he was
twenty-six. Investing in copper, oil, chemicals and automobile financing, he soon became a director of a number of
corporations. In 1910 he married Agnes Elizabeth Ernst, a
strong-willed, intellectual woman of Lutheran background
who had worked as a New York newspaper reporter. In
addition to Katharine, the couple had four other children.
By the time he was forty he was worth $40 million dollars and able to undertake unpaid public service. Starting in 1917 he held posts under seven Presidents of the
United States: Director of the War Finance Corporation
during World War I; member of the Federal Farm Loan
Board (1927); governor of the Federal Reserve Board
(1930–1933); first chairman of the Reconstruction Finance
Corporation (1932); and first president of the World Bank
(1946).
At the age of fifty-eight, he bought The Post for $825,000
with encouragement from his wife, who occasionally wrote
for it. Meyer revitalized the dying newspaper, giving it a
vigorous editorial page, improving news coverage and redesigning its appearance. He expressed his journalistic philosophy in a credo published on the front page of The Post
on March 5, 1935: “The first mission of a newspaper is to
tell the truth as nearly as the truth may be ascertained….As
a disseminator of news, the paper shall observe the decencies that are obligatory upon a private gentleman.”
Although the newspaper continued to lose money after
he bought it, under Meyer’s leadership circulation and
advertising both soared. By 1943, circulation had tripled
to 162,000. In 1946, Meyer stepped down as editor and
publisher to head the World Bank, naming his son-inlaw, Philip Graham, to succeed him. Meyer returned to
the newspaper six months later as chairman of the board.
In 1954 he purchased the Times-Herald and consolidated
it with the Post, giving his newspaper a monopoly in the
morning field and assuring its financial success. Meyer
remained board chairman until his death in Washington
on July 17, 1959. He and his wife established the Agnes
and Eugene Meyer Foundation to improve social conditions in Washington, DC.
Further Reading
Bray, Howard. The Pillars of the Post: The Making of a News
Empire in Washington. New York: Norton, 1980.
Graham, Katharine. Personal History. New York: Knopf, 1997.
Meyer, Agnes E. Out of These Roots: The Autobiography of an
American Woman. Boston: Little Brown, 1953.
Roberts, Chalmers M. The Washington Post: The First 100 Years.
Boston: Houghton, 1977.
Mifflin, 1977; revised and enlarged as In the Shadow of Power:
The Story of the Washington Post. Cabin John, Md.: Seven
Locks Press, 1989.
Pusey, Merlo J. Eugene Meyer. New York: Knopf, 1974.
Maurine H. Beasley