Katharine Graham Popular Books
Katharine Graham Biography & Facts
Katharine Meyer Graham (June 16, 1917 – July 17, 2001) was an American newspaper publisher. She led her family's newspaper, The Washington Post, from 1963 to 1991. Graham presided over the paper as it reported on the Watergate scandal, which eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. She was the first 20th century female publisher of a major American newspaper and the first woman elected to the board of the Associated Press. Graham's memoir, Personal History, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998. Early life Katharine Meyer was born in 1917 into a wealthy family in New York City, to Agnes Elizabeth (née Ernst) and Eugene Meyer. During her childhood, she also lived in Alameda, California. Her father was a financier and, later, Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Her grandfather was Marc Eugene Meyer, and her great-grandfather was rabbi Joseph Newmark. Her father bought The Washington Post in 1933 at a bankruptcy auction. Her mother was a bohemian intellectual, art lover, and political activist in the Republican Party, who shared friendships with people as diverse as Auguste Rodin, Marie Curie, Thomas Mann, Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, John Dewey and Saul Alinsky.Her father was of Alsatian Jewish descent, and her mother was a Lutheran whose parents were German immigrants. Along with her four siblings, Katharine was baptized as a Lutheran but attended an Episcopal church. Her siblings included Florence, Eugene III (Bill), Ruth and Elizabeth (Biss) Meyer.Meyer's parents owned several homes across the country, but primarily lived between a mansion in Washington, D.C., and a large estate (later owned by Donald Trump) in Westchester County, New York. Meyer often did not see much of her parents during her childhood, as both traveled and socialized extensively; she was raised in part by nannies, governesses and tutors. Katharine endured a strained relationship with her mother. In her memoir, Katharine reports that Agnes could be negative and condescending towards her, which had a negative impact on Meyer's self-confidence.Her older sister Florence Meyer was a successful photographer and wife of actor Oscar Homolka. Her father's sister, Florence Meyer Blumenthal, founded the Prix Blumenthal.As a child, Meyer attended a Montessori school until the fourth grade when she enrolled at The Potomac School. She attended high school at The Madeira School (to which her father donated land for its new Virginia campus), then Vassar College before transferring to the University of Chicago. In Chicago, she became quite interested in labor issues and shared friendships with people from walks of life very different from her own. Career After graduation, Meyer worked for a short period at a San Francisco newspaper where, among other things, she helped cover a major strike by wharf workers. Meyer began working for the Post in 1938. On June 5, 1940, Meyer was married to Philip Graham, a graduate of Harvard Law School and a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. They had a daughter, Lally Morris Weymouth, and three sons: Donald Edward Graham (born 1945), William Welsh Graham (1948-2017) and Stephen Meyer Graham (born 1952). She was affiliated as a Lutheran.In his Los Angeles home, William Graham died at 69 on December 20, 2017. Like his father, Phil Graham, he died by suicide. The Washington Post Philip Graham became publisher of the Post in 1946, when Eugene Meyer handed over the newspaper to his son-in-law. Katharine recounts in her autobiography, Personal History, how she did not feel slighted by the fact her father gave the Post to Philip rather than her: "Far from troubling me that my father thought of my husband and not me, it pleased me. In fact, it never crossed my mind that he might have viewed me as someone to take on an important job at the paper." Her father, Eugene Meyer, went on to become the head of the World Bank, but left that position only six months later. He was Chairman of the Washington Post Company until his death in 1959, when Philip Graham took that position and the company expanded with the purchases of television stations and Newsweek magazine. Social life and politics The Grahams were important members of the Washington social scene, becoming friends with John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Robert F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert McNamara, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, and Nancy Reagan among many others.In her 1997 autobiography, Graham comments several times about how close her husband was to politicians of his day (he was instrumental, for example, in getting Johnson to be the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 1960), and how such personal closeness with politicians later became unacceptable in journalism. She tried to push lawyer Edward Bennett Williams into the role of Washington D.C.'s first commissioner mayor in 1967. The position went to Howard University-educated lawyer Walter Washington.Graham was also known for a long-time friendship with Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway owned a substantial stake in the Post. Philip Graham's illness and death Philip Graham dealt with alcoholism and mental illness throughout his marriage to Katharine. He had mood swings and often belittled her. On Christmas Eve in 1962, Katharine learned her husband was having an affair with Robin Webb, an Australian stringer for Newsweek. Philip declared that he would divorce Katharine for Robin, and he made motions to divide the couple's assets.At a newspaper conference in Phoenix, Arizona, Philip apparently had a nervous breakdown. He was sedated, flown back to Washington, and placed in the Chestnut Lodge psychiatric facility in nearby Rockville. On August 3, 1963, he committed suicide with a shotgun at the couple's "Glen Welby" estate near Marshall in the Virginia horse country. Leadership of the Post Katharine Graham assumed the reins of the company and of the Post after Philip Graham's suicide. She held the title of president and was de facto publisher of the paper from September 1963. She formally held the title of publisher from 1969 to 1979, and that of chairwoman of the board from 1973 to 1991. She became the first female Fortune 500 CEO in 1972, as CEO of the Washington Post Company. As the only woman to be in such a high position at a publishing company, she had no female role models and had difficulty being taken seriously by many of her male colleagues and employees. Graham outlined in her memoir her lack of confidence and distrust in her own knowledge. The convergence of the women's movement with Graham's control of the Post brought about changes in Graham's attitude and also led her to promote gender equality within her company. Graham hired Benjamin Bradlee as editor, and cultivated Warren Buffett for his financial advice; he became a major shareholder and something of an eminence grise in the company. Her son Donald was publisher from 1979 until 2000. Watergate Graham presided over the Post at a crucial time in.... Discover the Katharine Graham popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Katharine Graham books.
Best Seller Katharine Graham Books of 2024
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When a Lord Needs a Lady
Jane Goodger“A heartwarming and amusing romance . . . with steamy scenes and believable tension” from the author of The Mad Lord’s Daughter and When a Duke Says I Do (Library Journal)....
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Waverley
Walter Scott & Andrew HookSet against the backdrop of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, Waverley depicts the story of Edward Waverley, an idealistic daydreamer whose loyalty to his regiment is threatened when...
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Reluctant Genius
Charlotte GrayThe popular image of Alexander Graham Bell is that of an elderly American patriarch, memorable only for his paunch, his Santa Claus beard, and the invention of the telephone. In th...
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Oracle of Life
Katherine D. GrahamSix fallen lords. Three vengeful goddesses. And one mortal, damned to prophesy for them all.An Exiled OracleNariah, the Heiress of Ellonai, is dead. An exiled, desertdwelling Dooms...
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Katharine Graham
Robin GerberFor more than twenty years Katharine Graham was a selfdescribed “doormat wife.” But after her husband’s suicide, she took over as publisher and CEO of The Washington Post and shock...
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Splitting Dawn
Katherine D. GrahamEnvied by Her Enemies, Loathed by Her Loved Ones, Frantically Seeking Freedom for Herself...A Reluctant Royal...Princess Kierra never wanted to rule. Inheriting a doomed kingdom be...
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Monk of Death
Katherine D. GrahamFour estranged lords. Two feuding kingdoms. And one mortal, destined to lead them all.A Life of Service And DeceitKritinia's pilgrimage was never supposed to end with Death. A...
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Power, Privilege and the Post
Carol FelsenthalKatharine Graham's story has all the elements of the phoenix rising from the ashes, and in Carol Felsenthal's unauthorized biography, Power, Privilege, and the Post, Graham's perso...
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Katharine the Great
Deborah DavisIn the early 1970s, Katharine Graham was one of the most powerful women on earth. The publisher of the Washington Post, she published the Pentagon Papers, which shed light on the d...
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The Godmother
Katherine D. GrahamFlames rise on the horizon. The Godmother rises to meet them.Eliza Farrington the Third is the top Fairy Warrior in the universe, undefeated in both magic and physical strengt...
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Das Geheimnis von Chaleran Castle
Elaine WinterEin spanischer Obsthof um 1900: Als ein äußerst attraktiver und zuvorkommender Schotte Zitronenbäume kaufen will, verliebt sich Sofia, die Tochter des Obstbauern, mit Haut und Haar...
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The Forgotten Kingdom
Signe PikeFrom the author of The Lost Queen, hailed as “Outlander meets Camelot” (Kirsty Logan, the author of The Gloaming) and “The Mists of Avalon for a new generation” (Linnea Hartsuyker,...
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The Pentagon Papers
Katharine GrahamDrawn from Katharine Graham’s Pulitzer Prizewinning memoir Personal History, a dramatic account of how she piloted the Washington Post through the Pentagon Papers an...
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All About the Story
Leonard Downie, Jr.At a time when the role of journalism is especially critical, the former executive editor of the Washington Post writes about his nearly fifty years at the newspaper and the import...
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Sheela-Na-Gig
Bridget DoyleJane Claremont, a notsoinnocent 19thcentury English novice, is just about to be ordained a nun when she begins to experience intense sexual visions and ones that have the knack of...
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The Lost Queen
Signe Pike“Outlander meets Camelot” (Kirsty Logan, author of The Gracekeepers) in the first book of an exciting historical series that reveals the untold story of Languoretha powerful and, u...
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Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life
Yiyun LiIn her first memoir, awardwinning novelist Yiyun Li offers a journey of recovery through literature: a letter from a writer to likeminded readers. “A meditation on the fact that li...
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Yours in Truth
Jeff HimmelmanAn intimate profile of the legendary Washington Post editor whose life and career encompassed Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, and the Kennedysas portrayed by Tom Hanks in the Steve...
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Fifty Fashion Looks that Changed the 1950s
DESIGN MUSEUM ENTERPRISE LTD & Paula ReedThe Design Museum and fashion guru Paula Reed present Fifty Fashion Looks that Changed the 1950s. The most exciting, influential and definitive looks of one of the most significant...
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The Vow That Twisted Fate
Katherine D. GrahamThree Queens Scattered Across Time, and a Fate That Binds Them All TogetherBorn Into Peace...For five hundred years, young Queen Arlena's people have known only peace. But when an ...
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Das Erbe der Wintersteins
Carolin RathZwei Frauen, zwei Jahrhunderte und ein geheimnisvolles Tagebuch, das ihre Schicksale miteinander verbindet.Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts: Claire wurde als Baby aus einer verunglückten ...
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Confessions of an English Opium Eater
Thomas De Quincey & Barry Milligan"Thou has the keys of Paradise, oh just, subtle, and mighty opium!" Determined to counter the lies about opium that had been told by travellers to the Orient and the medical profes...
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Ein unwiderstehlicher Halunke
Liz Carlyle & Nicole FriedrichWenn aus Rache Liebe wird ...Sidonie SaintGodard führt ein Doppelleben: Tagsüber bringt sie jungen Damen Benehmen bei, nachts wohlhabende Herren um ihr Vermögen. Als "Schwarzer Eng...