Katharine Meyer Graham was born in New York City on June 16, 1917, the fourth of five children. In 1933 her dad bought the Washington Post for $875,000 after he had retired. The reason he bought it was he wanted to have a voice in our country’s affairs. This paper became the capitol’s most influential paper. Katharine always had an interest in publishing as a student and worked on the student newspaper at Madeira and in the summers she worked for her dad at the Washington Post. A year after graduating she joined the editorial staff at the Post.
In 1940 she married Philip Graham, a Harvard Law graduate who later served in the Army during World War II. It was then she gave up her career of reporting and spent her time moving from base to base with Philip until he was sent overseas at which time she returned to the Post. In 1945 her husband began working at the post as an associate publisher and in 1948 Meyer entrusted the business to his son-in-law. Philip and Meyer built the business to success and acquired the Washington Times Herald in 1954 and Newsweek in 1961 for approximately $8-$15 million.
Then unfortunately in 1963 Philip shot himself and it was then that Katharine took over as president of the company. During her marriage to Philip she had devoted a lot of time to raising her daughter and 3 sons but always kept an interest in what was going on with the Post. But now she was taking over this incredible company ready or not. As she stated in her book, Personal History, "What I essentially did was to put one foot in front of the other, shut my eyes, and step off the edge".
Can you imagine being in her shoes? One day focusing primarily on your family having some knowledge of the business your husband ran and then the next taking over as president of the company in charge of everything? Certainly could be exciting and scary all at the same time. But having that courage to step into that role led her to becoming the first female CEO of a Fortune 500 company. When asked later about her success she said, "To love what you do and feel that it matters — how could anything be more fun?" She later died in 2001 from head injuries sustained from a fall on a sidewalk while attending a conference in Idaho.
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