Agnes E. Meyer

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Agnes E. Meyer (1912)

Agnes Elizabeth Meyer (born Ernst; born January 2, 1887 in New York , NY , † September 1, 1970 in Mount Kisco ) was an American journalist , human rights advocate, patron and philanthropist . She was married to Eugene Meyer and was a co-owner and co-editor of the Washington Post . She exchanged letters with Thomas Mann for 18 years.

Life

Agnes Elizabeth Ernst was born as the daughter of immigrants from northern Germany. Her father Friedrich (later: Frederick) HW Ernst came from Großgoltern and was a lawyer, her mother Luise (later: Lucy) Schmidt came from Lesum . Her grandfather, Karl Ernst, was an Evangelical Lutheran pastor in the Kingdom of Hanover and was a member of the assembly there for a time . Her parents met in the United States. Luise Schmidt, the daughter of a seaman and the oldest of seven children, had been to New York for a visit; Friedrich HW Ernst persuaded her to stay. They married on May 30, 1878 in New York.

Agnes Elizabeth was the youngest of four children and the only girl. She spent the first years of her childhood in Pelham Heights, then a village on the northern outskirts of New York.

The relationship with the father was close until she found out that he led a double life with love affairs and lived beyond his means. She did not forgive him for his bankruptcy. It resulted in a move to New York, where she attended Morris High School. She performed particularly well in foreign languages. She was ahead of her peers, graduating from school at the age of 16.

The father wanted the daughter to become a secretary so that she could earn some money soon. Against his will, she began to study mathematics at Barnard College on a scholarship, but quickly turned to philosophy and literature. In her final year at university she studied with John Dewey , whose pragmatism, liberalism and commitment to educational reform shaped her. After graduating in 1907 she became the first reporter for the New York Morning Sun . She was interested in the New York art scene. Eugene Meyer saw the young journalist for the first time in February 1908 at an exhibition on Japanese art . It was immediately clear to him, the daughter Katharine Graham described in her memoir, that he would marry the tall blonde with blue eyes, who looked very self-assured. However, he hesitated to speak to her; The contact was established a short time later by an acquaintance.

In 1908/1909 she spent a year in Paris - at the suggestion of the photographer Edward Steichen , who had become her mentor. From there she made trips to Germany, Austria, Italy and England. She continued to write for the Sun and attended lectures on art history at the Sorbonne . In Germany, they visited relatives in maternal Lesum and met in Bremen with Alfred Walter Heymel she knew from New York.

In Paris she received two visits from Eugene Meyer, who had already proposed to her before her stay in Europe. In the French capital, she sought the acquaintance of well-known personalities such as Henri Matisse , Gustav Mahler , Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin , who in vain asked her to model him. As an attractive and for the time unusually independent young woman, she had many admirers. In her autobiography, she wrote that if someone did not fall head over heels in love with her, life was boring for her. Nothing was further from her than the thought of marriage.

Artist group in Mount Kisco in 1912 (left to right): Paul Haviland, Abraham Walkowitz, Katharine Rhoades , Emily Stieglitz, Agnes Ernst (Mrs. Eugene Meyer), Alfred Stieglitz , JB Kerfoot, John Marin

Nevertheless, soon after her return to the USA in February 1910, she married Eugene Meyer according to the Lutheran rite. From the point of view of their contemporaries, both had a social flaw: Agnes Elizabeth was the daughter of a bankrupt, Eugene was a Jew. He paid off his father's debts, with her he was able to fulfill his wish for a family and got an educated and socially competent partner who knew how to represent. She called marriage her greatest asset in her autobiography, and he found that it often irritated him but never bored him. By marrying a Jew, contrary to her own expectations, she was exposed to social exclusion, which hurt her deeply.

She had five children with Eugene Meyer, but she did not give up her journalistic work and dealt primarily with socio-political problems, in particular with educational reforms. After the birth of her second child, she broke out of the marriage, took the ship to Europe in the spring of 1914, resumed her former bohemian life in France and also traveled to Germany. A reunion with Alfred Walter Heymel caused her to return soberly, although she did not feel fulfilled by marriage and motherhood.

In 1915, Agnes E. Meyer, Paul Haviland and Marius de Zayas, who were employees at Alfred Stieglitz ' Galerie 291 and were dissatisfied with the development of the gallery, suggested the establishment of a new photo magazine. It was titled like the 291 gallery . Around 1918, Eugene Meyer had Charles A. Platt build the "Seven Springs" country house in Mount Kisco , which has belonged to Donald Trump since 1994 .

In 1920 women in the USA were given the right to vote, and Agnes E. Meyer's political engagement began the following year. Her mentor was William L. Ward , with whom she was having an affair, according to her daughter Katharine . Meyer became a Republican , she represented the liberal positions of the time within the party. For 18 years, from 1923 to 1941, she was at the instigation of Ward chairman of the "Recreation Commission" in Westchester County . Their tasks were varied: from parks to road construction to cultural life. On December 22, 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor , she wrote to Thomas Mann from Washington about the task of giving up the job : “I have resigned my position in Winchester Co. otherwise I would have to live there because of the important preparation for a possible sudden one Evacuation of NY I worked there for eighties. It wasn't easy to cancel leaving my staff. "

The way to the House of Representatives was open to her, but she preferred to exert influence through other bodies, from around 1929 as a member of the “Library of Congress Trust Fund Board”, which is responsible for the asset management of the National Library. Her old liberal positions made her an opponent of Franklin D. Roosevelt until the beginning of the Second World War ; during the war and in the post-war period she changed her attitude. She strictly opposed the Committee on Un-American Activities , Joseph McCarthy considered her a dangerous demagogue and psychopath. In 1956 she supported Adlai Stevenson's presidential candidacy , and in 1960 John F. Kennedy against Richard Nixon . In the same year she made her resignation from the Republican Party public. She stood up against the arms race of the nuclear powers and called for an international women's peace conference to be convened in Geneva.

Eugene Meyer (between 1940 and 1946)

In 1933, her husband Eugene Meyer bought the Washington Post, which had been almost ruined by the previous owner . Agnes E. Meyer became co-owner and later co-editor. Unlike her husband, Agnes E. Meyer had journalistic experience, she was also a good writer and speaker. Both goals were to use the officially independent newspaper, which was still in the red for several years, as an instrument against President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal . Agnes E. Meyer, together with the department heads, endeavored to raise the level and reputation of the newspaper by trying to attract the best possible reporters and writers to the newspaper, which was at the bottom of the five newspapers in the capital Washington .

During World War II , the New York Herald Tribune reported Agnes E. Meyer's discovery that five million young Americans had not been admitted to military service because of either physical or educational deficits. Education was thus classified as a matter of defense for the USA.

Paul Cézanne: Still Life with Apples and Peaches (around 1905) from the Meyer Collection

Together with her husband, Agnes E. Meyer collected works of art by Antoine-Louis Barye , Constantin Brâncuși , Paul Cézanne , Charles Despiau , Édouard Manet , Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Auguste Rodin , which she later donated to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC . The Agnes and Eugene E. Meyer Fund and the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation in Washington are still in operation today.

Family life

In her role as the mother of five children, Agnes E. Meyer did not go on. She and her husband mostly left their upbringing to nannies and governesses, and the family's chauffeur also became a confidante of the children. When the Meyer couple moved to Washington in 1917, they left their children in New York for four years. The children were then two, four and six years old, Katharine only a few months. Daughter Ruth was born in 1921. According to their daughter Katharine, the parents justified the fact that they were left behind by saying that they had not foreseen how long their stay there would last. As further arguments, they cited that Washington was overcrowded or that there was an epidemic of pneumonia there. The children occasionally visited their parents in Washington, who came to New York sporadically.

In response to her son Bill's later reproaches about the long separation period, Agnes E. Meyer replied that they had all been to school. After the birth of the second child, she complained about the destruction of her personality and later wrote: "I became a conscientious, but hardly a very loving mother." She expected her daughters to be combative, athletic and socially successful. She only wanted sons; after the birth of Eugene Meyer III, known as Bill, she admitted "the ridiculous feeling" of having "achieved something special".

The daughter Elizabeth studied music, like her mother before she attended Barnard College. Florence Meyer became a photographer. Katharine Graham succeeded her father and husband as editor of the Washington Post and received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for her autobiography Personal History . Her youngest daughter was Ruth Epstein (1921–2007). The only son, Eugene (1915-1982), was a psychoanalyst and medicine professor.

Agnes E. Meyer and Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann in April 1937 - that same month Agnes E. Meyer met the writer

During the National Socialist era , Agnes E. Meyer supported emigrated writers, in particular the Nobel Prize winner for literature Thomas Mann . She had an intensive correspondence with him. Agnes E. Meyer met him in April 1937 and reported on the conversation in the Washington Post under the heading National Socialism Can't Endure in Germany, Declares Dr. Man, Most Distinguished Exile . Only later did she write to identify herself as the wife of the Washington Post publisher. In late 1937 she encouraged Mann, who was known in the United States as "the greatest living man of letters", to consider moving to the United States.

Already in 1938 when applying for naturalization in Toronto , she helped Mann by clearing bureaucratic obstacles in the background. When Mann's son Golo , his brother Heinrich and his wife Nelly were stuck in occupied France, she used their connections to facilitate their departure.

White-Meyer House on Crescent Place, Washington, DC

Man and his wife Katia was in April 1939 at the end of a busy five-week lecture tour guests Agnes Meyers and her husband in their home in Washington, DC She arranged tours, concerts and glamorous companies for their guests and allowed them to participate in the "Gridiron Dinner" of accredited press corps in the White House , in which President Roosevelt participated, adored the man - unlike his hosts, who opposed his New Deal. Agnes E. Meyer's relationship with Thomas Mann took on manic features at times; he kept them at bay, but knew that their resources and connections could help him and his family survive in the United States. In many ways, she indirectly provided for him financially during his exile in the United States. In 1938, with her excellent connections, she secured him the appointment of " Lecturer in the Humanities" at Princeton University - he valued the obligation less and less because of the effort and did not regret the expiry. In 1941 he received an honorary position as a "Consultant in Germanic Literature" at the Library of Congress . The consent of the head of the library, Archibald MacLeish , was necessary for Mann's employment; Agnes E. Meyer was good friends with him. In addition to his extensive lecturing activities, Mann's position at the Library of Congress secured a good living and enabled the villa to be built in Pacific Palisades . Meyer took over the guarantee for the mortgage for the house construction . She helped finance the exile magazine Maß und Wert , which Mann and Konrad Falke published from 1937 to 1940.

In addition to the Meyers' Washington house, the Mann couple also stayed at their country house “Seven Springs” above Byram Lake in Mount Kisco , north of New York, on several weekends. Thomas Mann enjoyed the stay on the luxurious property, which he called "Schloss Sieben Quellen" and which in his diary praised its "perfect comfort of the rich house". He was particularly impressed by a house concert that Rudolf Serkin gave with the Busch Quartet in June 1940.

In the summer of 1939 Agnes E. Meyer traveled again to Germany. She wanted to write a book about Thomas Mann - later she withdrew from the project - and visited Mann's birthplace Lübeck and nearby Travemünde . In Berlin, on the recommendation of Paul Leverkühn, she met Paul Leverkühn, the son of a Lübeck district judge, whose name was familiar to the Mann family in connection with matters of guardianship after the death of Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann . Mann immortalized the name Leverkühn in his contemporary novel Doctor Faustus . Mann tried to convince her to translate the novel into English; it was then transferred from Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter . Agnes E. Meyer provided translation services for Mann, who in his early years did not yet have fluent language skills, including texts and speeches. Before giving lectures, he practiced pronunciation with her in English. She has also reviewed several of his works, Joseph in Egypt , Royal Highness , The Beloved Returns , The Transposed Heads , Order of the Day , a collection of political essays and statements, and Joseph the Provider . Agnes Meyer shaped the character of Tamar in this novel and later that of the wife of Tolna in Doctor Faustus .

Thomas Mann's 1943 lecture Fate and Task was met with overwhelming rejection. Agnes Meyer also criticized the work because it reveals a strange understanding of democracy and communism .

Despite offering Thomas Mann to use the Washington Post for public access in the United States, he published only three articles in the newspaper during his 14 years in the United States.

Agnes E. Meyer's daughter Katharine described her mother's friendship with the writer as a “consuming passion that threatened her inner balance”, but she was nevertheless a great asset. Despite Meyer's commitment, Mann occasionally expressed derogatory comments about her in his diaries. "The arduous ghost turkey in Washington" he called it and "hysterical". In the correspondence, however, he addressed her as "Dear friend". In an eleven-page letter in February 1955 - he died in August of that year - Mann gave a moving review of the 18-year friendship with testamentary character; she addressed him in her reply as "dearest Tommie". While Thomas Mann did not keep all the letters from the correspondence with Agnes E. Meyer, she left most of his letters to Yale University for their "Thomas Mann Collection". The correspondence was published in 1992 by Hans Rudolf Vaget .

Works (selection)

as an author

  • Chinese Painting as Reflected in The Thought and Art of Li Lung-mien. Duffield and Co. New York 1923.
  • Out of these roots. The autobiography of an American woman. New edition Little Brown, Boston, Mass. 1953.
  • Education for a New Morality. Macmillan, New York 1957.
  • Chance and Destiny. (Autobiography, unpublished)
  • Hans Rudolf Vaget (Ed.): Thomas Mann, Agnes E. Meyer. Correspondence 1937–1955. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 1992, ISBN 3-10-048200-X .
  • Journey through chaos. Harcourt Brace, New York 1944.

as a translator

  • Friedrich Hirth: Native Sources for the History of Chinese Pictorial Art. Columbia University, New York 1917.
  • Thomas Mann: The coming victory of democracy ("On the future victory of democracy"). Knopf, New York 1938.

literature

  • Hans Rudolf Vaget : The Meyer. In: Ders .: Thomas Mann, the American. Life and work in American exile 1938–1952. S. Fischer. Frankfurt am Main 2011, pp. 157-215 ISBN 978-3-10-087004-9 .
  • Hans Rudolf Vaget (Ed.): Introduction. In: Thomas Mann, Agnes E. Meyer: Correspondence 1939–1955 . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1992, pp. 5-71 ISBN 3-10-048200-X .
  • Katharine Graham : Personal History. Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1997
    • We press! The head of the Washington Post tells the story of her life . Rowohlt, Reinbek 2001, ISBN 3-499-61199-6 ; New edition 2018 under the title The publisher: How the head of the Washington Post changed America (translation: Henning Thies). Rowohlt, Reinbek 2018, ISBN 978-3-499-63414-7

Web links

Commons : Agnes E. Meyer  - Collection of Pictures

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Vaget (Ed.): Introduction. In: Thomas Mann, Agnes E. Meyer: Correspondence 1939–1955 . P. 15.
  2. ↑ Hans Rudolf Vaget (Ed.): Introduction. In: Thomas Mann, Agnes E. Meyer: Correspondence 1939–1955 . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1992, pp. 5-71, here p. 10.
  3. ^ Vaget (Ed.): Introduction. In: Thomas Mann, Agnes E. Meyer: Correspondence 1939–1955 . P. 16.
  4. ↑ Katharine Graham: The publisher: How the boss of the "Washington Post" changed America . Pp. 7-8.
  5. ^ Vaget (Ed.): Introduction. In: Thomas Mann, Agnes E. Meyer: Correspondence 1939–1955 . P. 18.
  6. ^ Vaget (Ed.): Introduction. In: Thomas Mann, Agnes E. Meyer: Correspondence 1939–1955 . P. 18.
  7. ^ Vaget (Ed.): Introduction. In: Thomas Mann, Agnes E. Meyer: Correspondence 1939–1955 . P. 16.
  8. ↑ Hans Rudolf Vaget: The Meyer. In: Ders .: Thomas Mann, the American. S. Fischer. Frankfurt am Main 2011, pp. 157-215.
  9. ↑ Hans Rudolf Vaget: Thomas Mann, the American , pp. 157-215.
  10. ↑ Katharina Graham: The publisher. Pp. 24-25.
  11. ↑ Hans Rudolf Vaget: Thomas Mann, the American , p. 176.
  12. ↑ Katherine Hoffman: Goldfinch: A Beginning Light . New Haven: Yale University Press Studio, 2004, pp. 262-264.
  13. ↑ Eugene Meyer's Seven Springs Estate, Mount Kisco, New York with picture on flickr.com
  14. ^ Vaget (Ed.): Introduction. In: Thomas Mann, Agnes E. Meyer: Correspondence 1939–1955 . P. 26.
  15. ^ Hans Rudolf Vaget (eds.), Thomas Mann, Agnes E. Meyer: Correspondence 1939–1955 . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1992 ISBN 3-10-048200-X , p. 344.
  16. ↑ Hans Rudolf Vaget: Thomas Mann, the American. Pp. 177-179.
  17. ^ Vaget (Ed.): Introduction. In: Thomas Mann, Agnes E. Meyer: Correspondence 1939–1955 . P. 34.
  18. ↑ Hans Rudolf Vaget: The Meyer. In: Ders .: Thomas Mann, the American. P. 161.
  19. ↑ Katharine Graham: The publisher. Pp. 32-33.
  20. ↑ Katharine Graham: The publisher. P. 28.
  21. ↑ Katharina Graham: The publisher. P. 37, p. 57.
  22. ↑ Katharine Graham: The publisher. P. 38.
  23. ↑ Ruth Epstein Meyer at findagrave.com
  24. ^ Alfred E. Clark: Eugene Meyer, Medical Professor. In: nytimes.com. February 26, 1982, accessed July 9, 2018 .
  25. ↑ Hans R. Vaget: Bad weather, good climate: Thomas Mann in America. In: Helmut Koopmann (Ed.): Thomas Mann Handbook. Kröner, Stuttgart 2001, 3rd, updated edition. Pp. 68-77, here pp. 69-70.
  26. ↑ Hans Rudolf Vaget: Thomas Mann, the American. Pp. 19-21, pp. 181-182, p. 258.
  27. ^ Thomas speaker: Thomas Mann in Zurich. Wilhelm Fink Publishing House. Munich 1992, p. 190, p. 192 ISBN 3-7705-2822-0 .
  28. ↑ Hans Rudolf Vaget: Thomas Mann, the American. Pp. 175-176.
  29. ↑ Hans Rudolf Vaget: Thomas Mann, the American. Pp. 198-203.
  30. ↑ Hans Rudolf Vaget: Thomas Mann, the American. P. 179.
  31. ↑ So Hans Rudolf Vaget. In: America . Thomas Mann Handbook. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 72
  32. ↑ Manfred Görtemaker: Thomas Mann and politics. Fischer, Frankfurt 2005, p. 164
  33. ↑ Hans Rudolf Vaget: Thomas Mann, the American. Pp. 157-215.
  34. ↑ Katherine Graham: The Publisher. P. 97.
  35. ^ Diary March 2, 1942
  36. ↑ Hans Rudolf Vaget: Thomas Mann, the American. Pp. 190-191.
  37. ↑ Hans Rudolf Vaget: Thomas Mann, the Armerican. Pp. 190-191.
personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Agnes E.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ernst, Agnes Elizabeth (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American journalist
DATE OF BIRTH January 2, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH September 1, 1970
Place of death Mount Kisco