Uploaded February 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Becoming Katharine Graham is a profile of a self-described "doormat housewife" who became the publisher of The Washington Post and one of the most influential journalists in modern American history.
Born in 1917, Katharine Graham — known as “Kay” — was raised to adhere to the expectation that men would have careers, and women would raise the family. Kay, like most other women at the time, abided by these societal norms. But the course of her life would drastically change once her father, financier Eugene Meyer, bought a struggling newspaper in 1933.
This struggling newspaper was The Washington Post, and it was on the brink of collapse. Though the paper’s performance improved after 1933 — first under her father’s leadership and then her husband’s —Phil Graham’s suicide in 1963 left Kay with a leaderless newspaper and four young children, forcing her to decide whether to take over the family business herself or sell it. She made the difficult and unprecedented decision to run it herself.
At its heart, Becoming Katharine Graham highlights pivotal events of the 1970s that occurred under Kay’s leadership — the Pentagon Papers, the Watergate scandal, and a violent Washington Post pressmen’s strike — as well as treatment she endured as one of the first female leaders in corporate America. Her Pulitzer Prize winning story is sure to inspire a new generation.
Becoming Katharine Graham is a profile of a self-described "doormat housewife" who became the publisher of The Washington Post and one of the most influential journalists in modern American history.
Born in 1917, Katharine Graham — known as “Kay” — was raised to adhere to the expectation that men would have careers, and women would raise the family. Kay, like most other women at the time, abided by these societal norms. But the course of her life would drastically change once her father, financier Eugene Meyer, bought a struggling newspaper in 1933.
This struggling newspaper was The Washington Post, and it was on the brink of collapse. Though the paper’s performance improved after 1933 — first under her father’s leadership and then her husband’s —Phil Graham’s suicide in 1963 left Kay with a leaderless newspaper and four young children, forcing her to decide whether to take over the family business herself or sell it. She made the difficult and unprecedented decision to run it herself.
At its heart, Becoming Katharine Graham highlights pivotal events of the 1970s that occurred under Kay’s leadership — the Pentagon Papers, the Watergate scandal, and a violent Washington Post pressmen’s strike — as well as treatment she endured as one of the first female leaders in corporate America. Her Pulitzer Prize winning story is sure to inspire a new generation.
