Agnes E. Meyer

Agnes Elizabeth Ernst Meyer (; January 2, 1887 – September 1, 1970) was an American journalist, philanthropist, civil rights activist, and art patron. Throughout her life, Meyer was engaged with intellectuals, artists, and writers from around the world. Meyer's marriage to the financier Eugene Meyer, son of Marc Eugene Meyer, provided her with wealth and status that enabled her to influence national policy, such as social welfare programs. President Lyndon Johnson credited Meyer for building public support for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which for the first time directed federal assistance towards school districts that served children from low-income families. During Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-Communist campaign in the 1950s, Meyer delivered speeches that characterized the campaign as a threat to academic freedom.

Meyer was an active patron and supporter of the arts, who with her husband contributed paintings by Paul Cézanne and Edouard Manet, sculptures by Constantin Brâncuși, and watercolors by John Marin to the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Early life and education Meyer was born on January 2, 1887, in New York City to Frederic and Lucy Ernst, who were first-generation German Lutheran immigrants. As a girl, her family moved to Pelham Heights, which was then a rural village (now part of Pelham, N.Y.) in Westchester County. The family then moved back to the city, where Agnes went to Morris High School in The Bronx. Her interest in education and philosophy brought her under the spell of Columbia professor John Dewey, and they would both have a major effect on American public education in later decades. Ernst graduated from Barnard in 1907. They married in 1910, exactly two years after Eugene Meyer encountered Ernst.

In 1915–1916, she created and published the literary art magazine 291 with Alfred Stieglitz, Marius de Zayas, and Paul Haviland. It was a glowing tribute to a young Saul Alinsky, who was then an obscure community organizer in Chicago. He was also a frequent visitor to the home of the Meyers in Washington, and to their estate in Westchester.

During Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-Communist campaign in the 1950s, Meyer delivered speeches that characterized the campaign as a threat to academic freedom. She spoke at the convention of the American Association of School Administrators in Atlantic City, New Jersey, calling his behavior an affront to the dignity of a free people. Her gender politics were more traditionalist and typical of the decade, however, seen when she wrote an article for the Atlantic Monthly in which she asserted "Women have many careers but only one vocation – motherhood. . . . Women must boldly announce that no job is more exacting, more necessary, or more rewarding than that of housewife and mother. Then they will feel free to become once more the moral force of society through the stabilization of the home."

Meyer's investigative journalism showed the inequities of racial segregation in the Washington metropolitan area schools.

Art patronage

Meyer met Charles Lang Freer, the Detroit industrialist and collector in 1913 at a Chinese painting exhibition. Over the years, together they studied and collected Chinese and other Asian art. When Freer died before the Freer Gallery of Art was completed, Meyer and her husband took over making the final decisions. Their oldest daughter Florence Meyer (1911–1962) was a photographer and married to actor Oskar Homolka. Elizabeth Meyer Lorentz (1913–2001) was an author who was married to Pare Lorentz. Eugene "Bill" Meyer III (1915–1982) was a physician and medical professor. Katharine Graham (1917–2001) was the publisher of The Washington Post. Ruth Meyer (1921–2007) married William A. Epstein. The Meyer family first leased, in 1929, and then bought, in 1934, property on Crescent Place. The property, now known as the White-Meyer House, is on the National Register. The estate overlooks Byram Lake, and is at the point where the towns of North Castle, New Castle and Bedford meet.

Meyer was chairwoman of the Westchester County Recreation Commission for eighteen years (1923–1941).

Meyer had a twenty-year-long friendship with Thomas Mann She helped to create an active social life for him during his exile to the United States, by introducing him into elite social circles in New York and Washington. In 1938, she secured a position as lecturer in the humanities for him at Princeton University.

Death and legacy At the age of 83, Meyer died of cancer at Seven Springs Farm.

The Library of Congress holds the Agnes Elizabeth Ernst Meyer Papers which includes her diaries, correspondence with family, friends, and her career as an author and social activist, her speeches, and an unpublished manuscript for a memoir.