Born: 16 June 1917, United States
Died: 17 July 2001
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Kay Meyer
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women founder Allison Tyra’s book The View from the Hill: Women Who Made Their Mark After 40.
Katharine “Kay” Graham was an heiress, yet because of sexism, she was not the one placed in charge of The Washington Post when her father retired. Instead, it was “Philip Graham, her egocentric, hard-drinking, depressive, demoralizing husband, to whom Katharine’s father, the fabulously successful entrepreneur Eugene Meyer, handed the paper on a silver platter a few years after their marriage,” writes the Columbia Journalism Review. “Afraid of being boring, eager to please, Katharine soon became, by her own account, a “second-class citizen,” a “doormat wife,” “the drudge” who “liked to be dominated” by the “brilliant, charismatic, fascinating” Phil—in short, the most unlikely person in the world to succeed him as publisher of the increasingly influential Washington Post.”
Although she had worked in the editorial and circulation departments, it was not until she became a widow in 1963 that the 46-year-old Graham was able to take control. Indeed, not long before her husband’s suicide, he had told her that he planned to divorce her for another woman and buy out her 49 percent of the company stock—because, of course, his father-in-law had left him 51 percent because “no man should be in the position of working for his wife.” Although she had every intention of fighting him, his death made the issue moot.
Graham served as publisher from 1969 to 1979, and board chair and CEO from 1973 to 1991, remaining board chair until her 2001 death. During her tenure, “WaPo” rose to become one of the country’s top newspapers, and the company grew to include a range of other newspaper, broadcast, cable, and magazine properties. Graham is also remembered for her decision to publish the Pentagon Papers—a top-secret government study of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam—after a court ordered The New York Times not to do so, as well as approving the Watergate investigation of corruption in the Nixon administration. In addition to her business and editorial acumen, her 1997 memoir, Personal History, won the Pulitzer Prize for biography. Graham was portrayed by Meryl Streep in the 2017 film The Post, about the Pentagon Papers; both the film and Streep were nominated for Oscars.