Women's History Month Profile: Katharine Graham — Conquering Self-Doubt

“Function in disaster; finish in style.” That is a motto of the Madeira School, an elite girls’ school in northern Virginia that counts among its alumnae Katharine Graham, longtime publisher of the Washington Post and a 2000 Matrix Award winner. It could have served as her motto. From a devastating blow — the suicide of her husband after years of depression — she overcame self-doubt and fear to build the Post into the media icon it is today.

A few years ago, someone gave me a copy of Mrs. Graham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, “Personal History.”  While I’m usually not one for autobiographies, I was riveted — not only by Mrs. Graham’s front-row take on a tumultuous period for the newspaper industry and American politics, but also by her voice. Born into wealth and privilege, she came across as modest and self-deprecating, but also clear-headed and strong-willed. She exuded class and graciousness, qualities in short supply today.

Mrs. Graham was an unlikely feminist role model. She gained her position at the Post because of her relationship with two men: her father and her husband.  Her father, Eugene Meyer, bought the Post in 1933; her husband, Philip Graham, ran it from 1946 until he committed suicide in 1963. Upon his death, Mrs. Graham took over running the paper out of a sense of personal responsibility. “When my husband died, I had three choices,” she said. “I could sell it. I could find somebody else to run it. Or I could go to work. And that was no choice at all."

“Personal History” recounts Mrs. Graham’s shyness, fear of public speaking, and lack of self-confidence, none of which helped her navigate the all-male business world that she found herself thrust into. Over time, though, her confidence grew, as did both her business savvy and her sense of journalistic purpose. She guided the Post through several watershed events in U.S. journalism — the Pentagon Papers case, which helped cement the strength of the First Amendment, and most famously, through Watergate. From a business standpoint, mentored by legendary investor Warren Buffett, she diversified the company and increased revenue exponentially.

Mrs. Graham occupied an important role in a fascinating period in Washington, and she broke ground for women business leaders in the media industry. But what I found most compelling about her life was her transition from self-doubt to self-confidence, which mirrored the larger feminist movement going on at the same time. “The thing women must do to rise to power is to redefine their femininity,” she is quoted as saying. “Once, power was considered a masculine attribute. In fact power has no sex.”

Mrs. Graham died in 2001 from injuries suffered in a fall in Sun Valley, Idaho, at a conference of the world’s top media executives — a powerful scene in which she had become quite comfortable.

These days, the Post, along with the rest of the newspaper industry, is struggling to redefine itself in the face of the destruction of profit wrought by the Internet. And these days, another Katharine is running the Post — Katharine Weymouth, Mrs. Graham’s granddaughter. What’s different this time is that Ms. Weymouth, says Post journalist Sally Quinn, “is 100 percent comfortable in her own skin. She's never felt she had to prove anything to anyone.”

Nearly 50 years after Mrs. Graham first took the reins of the Post and began to prove herself to the Beltway boys’ club, that’s great to see.

More on Katharine Graham:
•    Charlie Rose interviews Mrs. Graham
•    Katharine Graham Remembered, The Washington Post
 

— Gail Griffin