page_title: Agnes E. Meyer
section_title: Personal life
hierarchical_section_title: Agnes E. Meyer / Personal life
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Eugene Meyer
context_page_description: Agnes Elizabeth Ernst Meyer 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. Meyer lobbied for the creation of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and for the U.S. government to provide federal aid to states for education. 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. She advocated for equal employment and educational opportunities, regardless of race. Meyer's investigative journalism showed the inequities of racial segregation in schools in the Washington metropolitan area.
  The purchase of The Washington Post in 1933 gave Meyer and her family the capacity to affect American opinion for several generations.
context_section_description: She returned to the United States from Paris in 1910 and married Eugene in a small Lutheran wedding. At that time, Eugene was established in his career as an investment banker and was financially well off.
  Meyer and Eugene had five children together. 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.
   
  In 1917, the Meyers relocated to Washington, D.C., and for the next sixteen years Eugene had a series of positions within the federal government, including Chairman of the Federal Reserve (1930–33). Eugene and Agnes Meyer lived in the Meridian Hill Park section of Washington. 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.
  In 1919, the Meyers built a mansion on the Seven Springs Farm in Westchester County, New York. The house had over 60 rooms, two wings for servants, 15 bedrooms, and three pools, including an indoor pool cased in white marble from Italy. 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.
caption: Portrait of Eugene Meyer
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