KATHERINE GRAHAM “PERSONAL HISTORY”

Katherine Graham “Personal History”



Katherine Graham “Personal History”

Introduction

Katharine Graham was most well-known to me for being publisher of The Washington Post during the newspaper's reporting of Watergate. However, her life extended far beyond the walls of the Washington Post city room. In a sense, her life was a life of contrasts and similarities. After reading Katharine Graham's Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography, Personal History, I am impressed with how powerful a great biography can be. I loved her story, and I loved her approach to her own life.

Overview

First and foremost, Mrs. Graham's book is, as the title would suggest, a very personal history.  While there are fascinating accounts of her leadership of the Washington Post, this is not primarily a book focusing on the operations of the newspaper industry.  Instead, it is an illuminating account of the economic, political, and business landscape of much of the last century. Eugene Meyer, Mrs. Graham's father, purchased the Washington Post in the depths of the Great Depression for $825,000 in 1933.  Almost from the beginning, Mrs. Graham was intimately involved with the Post and became immersed in the newspaper world.  By all accounts, during her college years, Mrs. Graham became an important confidant for her father who would often discuss newspaper issues with her.  From our early 21st century perspective, it seems very odd that no one, including Mrs. Graham, ever considered a formal role for her in the paper.  Instead, Mrs. Graham's husband became involved in the business and eventually took charge of the company during the 1950s.  Philip Graham's mental health issues and ultimate suicide in 1963, followed by Mrs. Graham's entry into the business of the Post, receives significant space in the narrative (Katharine Graham, 1998).

Analysis

Katharine Graham was born to great privilege. Such a statement, however, cannot even begin to encapsulate the spoiled upbringing this woman enjoyed. As I read about her financially privileged birth, I wondered how I could like such a “spoiled brat.” However, Katharine Graham's life illustrates that monetary security does not guarantee happiness, security, love, health, or an easy life. She grew just as anyone grows.

When Katharine was a 17-year-old boarding school student in suburban Washington, D.C., and the country was in the midst of the Great Depression (1933), her father bought The Washington Post Company (the fifth of five city newspapers and a pitiful, failing wreck) for $825,000. From then on, her life centered on The Washington Post.

At first, Katharine's involvement with the Post is observational: she studies journalism in college while her father strives make a profit running the newspaper; she marries and her husband, Phil, inherits the newspaper while she raises her children; she remains socially aloof while striving to find a place in society; she aids her husband while he struggles through mental illness. But on her husband's death in 1963, Katharine Graham becomes the head of the Post and everything in her life changes. Katharine Graham's life seems full of contrasts and similarities, any one of which could be ...