orig. Katharine Meyer
born July 16, 1917, New York, N.Y., U.S.
died July 17, 2001, Boise, Idaho
U.S. owner and publisher of news publications.
The daughter of Eugene Meyer (18751959), owner and publisher of The Washington Post (193346), she studied at Vassar College and the University of Chicago. In 1940 she married Philip Graham, who later became the Post 's publisher. The Grahams acquired the paper from Meyer in 1948. After her husband's suicide in 1963, she stepped in as head of the Washington Post Co. (which had purchased Newsweek in 1961). Under her leadership, and through the editorial direction of Ben Bradlee, the Post became one of the nation's most powerful newspapers, particularly with its coverage of the Watergate scandal . Her best-selling autobiography, Personal History , earned a Pulitzer Prize in 1997.