Scope and Content Note
The papers of Agnes Elizabeth Ernst Meyer (1887-1970) span the years 1853-2010, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1906-1970. The collection consists of diaries, family letters and papers, correspondence, speeches and writings, subject files, financial matter, research material, and other papers. The papers are organized into nine series: Diaries, General Correspondence, Subject File, Speeches and Writings, Research Material, Family Papers, Miscellany, Additions, and Oversize.
Because of her close association with the Library of Congress, it was appropriate that the personal papers of Agnes Meyer should find their permanent home in the national manuscript collections. [1] . For many years Meyer was a member of the Library's Trust Fund Board and as such was actively involved in the administration of the institution's cultural and scholarly programs.
The Meyer Papers are unusually full for every phase of her long and active life. In addition to a large number of letters to and from her, they include diaries, an unpublished memoir titled "Chance and Destiny," and an almost complete collection of her speeches, articles, and other writings, both in manuscript and printed form. The papers were joined after 1974 by those of her husband, Eugene Meyer.
Agnes Meyer was a woman who successfully combined several different careers: wife and mother, social worker, authority on Chinese art, literary critic, linguist, and author. She was born in 1887 in New York City to Frederic and Lucy Ernst, both immigrants from northern Germany. Her earliest years were spent in suburban Pelham Heights, years which contributed to her lifelong sense of stability and belonging. After four years of classical training at Morris High School in the city, she went on to Barnard College, graduating in 1907. Her college education was supplemented at the Sorbonne, where she studied art and history in 1908-1909. Between Barnard and the Sorbonne she acquired her first taste of the newspaper world as a city reporter for the New York Sun. In 1910 she married Eugene Meyer, an investment banker.
Some of Agnes Meyer's family history and background can be traced in the papers through letters of her grandparents, dating from the 1860s. For the formative years of her life there are school and college notes and grades, as well as letters to her father and mother, written faithfully while she was living and traveling in France, Germany, and Italy. The Paris letters in 1909 provide insight into her earliest awakening to the delights of French history, art, and sculpture. In a visit to London in 1909 she became interested in Chinese art while examining the collections in the British Museum. "I fell in love at first sight completely, hopelessly, and forever with Chinese art." From this time, too, came the inspiration for her first book, Chinese Painting as Reflected in the Thought and Art of Li-Lung-Mien (1923). Information in the papers for the early Paris years can be supplemented by reading her autobiography, Out of These Roots (1953).
Meyer's knowledge of Asian art was deepened through her friendship with Charles Lang Freer, noted collector and donor of the art gallery in Washington, D.C., that bears his name. She met Freer in 1913 and visited and corresponded with him regularly until his death in 1919. There is a series of over two hundred letters in the papers in which the two discuss and compare the qualities of various Chinese and Japanese paintings, scrolls, jades, bronzes, and sculptures, as well as their latest acquisitions and anticipated purchases. Beyond the world of Asian art these letters provide insight into the philosophy, personality, and character of Charles Freer and his devoted friend. Subject files on the Freer Galley of Art supplement the correspondence.
Just as Charles Freer had an important influence on Agnes Meyer's understanding of art, so Paul Claudel and Thomas Mann left their imprint in the realm of philosophy and religion. She met Claudel, Catholic poet and ambassador to the United States (1926-1933), at a Washington dinner party. Despite a gap in their theological beliefs, they maintained a lasting friendship, reflected well in their correspondence. The originals of Claudel's letters are at Yale University, but copies of these, numbering over one hundred, are in the Library's collection. Her friendship with Thomas Mann was less personal. She met him when he came to America in 1937 but was most at home with him through an extensive correspondence. Mann's letters are also at Yale University, and copies are lacking in the collection. There are, however, copies of many of Meyer's letters to Mann and files relating to him and to her translation of his book The Coming Victory of Democracy (1938).
In 1917 the Meyers took up residence in the nation's capital. Eugene Meyer closed his banking business in New York to serve as a dollar-a-year man on the advisory committee of the Council of National Defense, later the War Industries Board. The Meyers remained in Washington longer than they had anticipated. In 1921 Eugene was reappointed managing director of the War Finance Corporation. Subsequently he served as commissioner of the Federal Reserve Board and chair of the board of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. During his public service, the Meyers' home became one of Washington's best known social centers. Fortunately, Agnes Meyer kept diaries in which she recorded her impressions of presidents, cabinet officers, Supreme Court justices, foreign diplomats, literary figures, and musicians. Her diaries serve as interesting and valuable social and political commentary of the time.
The papers also contain an unpublished memoir titled "Chance and Destiny" that expands upon her diaries and includes material beyond that found in her published autobiography, Out of These Roots. Herein Meyer describes her friendship with Supreme Court justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Dembitz Brandeis, and Benjamin N. Cardozo. Holmes was admired for his intelligence and humor, but she was disappointed that he could not be converted to the joys of Chinese painting. On walks with the ascetic Brandeis, there were long and stimulating discussions on national and international affairs, especially on Zionism. Justice Cardozo she knew even better, and of these three famous jurists, he left upon her the most lasting impress. Other Washington figures of the 1920s who are made to live again in the pages of her diaries and memoir are John Lord O'Brian, Nicholas Longworth, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Ruth Hanna McCormick Simms, and Eleanor Medill ("Cissy") Patterson.
With American entry into World War II, Agnes Meyer turned her attention almost exclusively to public causes. Public service, however, was not something wholly new in her life. The papers are replete with files documenting her service as chair of the Westchester County Recreation Commission, Westchester County, New York, for eighteen years (1923-1941). She had been brought into this work by the Republican boss of the county, William L. Ward. Shortly after America's entrance into World War II she visited England to write a series of articles titled "Britain's Home Front." Next she toured the American home front and raised awareness regarding the waste of human resources and bad labor conditions in the war industries center. Meyer also criticized the segregation of African American soldiers in the United States Army. Material on these endeavors is found in the papers along with notes made by Meyer on visits to various German prisoner-of-war camps in this country. All of her experiences on the American home front were eventually published in a book, Journey Through Chaos (1944).
Dominant themes in Agnes Meyer's life in the post-World War II period were health, security, and federal aid to education. The papers will be helpful following her efforts, ultimately successful, to establish an executive department of cabinet status for health, education, and security. Correspondence and subject files also document her crucial role in the struggle to persuade Congress to enact legislation in support of public schools. Her strong opposition to including parochial schools in federal aid programs makes the files of interest to students of this aspect of the church-state problem in the United States. Meyer's work in the field of education reached fruition during the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson; the major achievement came in the signing of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Johnson credited Meyer with having more influence on him in education matters than any other person.
At the height of the controversy over Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-communist crusade in the 1950s, Meyer courageously attacked the senator in a speech delivered at the convention of the American Association of School Administrators in Atlantic City, New Jersey, labeling his behavior an affront to the dignity of a free people. The speech naturally inspired a great deal of mail, pro and con. Among the most interesting letters of support was one from the Auxiliary Catholic Bishop of Chicago, Bernard J. Sheil. Readers will also be interested in other Meyer-Sheil correspondence, which reveals the similarity of their social thought. Complementary to this correspondence is that of Saul David Alinsky, community organizer and activist in Chicago and also a friend of Bishop Sheil and Meyer.
The General Correspondence series in the collection will attract the attention of cultural, literary, and political historians. They will find letters exchanged with the French sculptor Auguste Rodin, photographers Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz, curator J. Carter Brown, educational leaders John Dewey and James Bryant Conant, environmentalist Rachel Carson, and scientist Harlow Shapley. Several letters of President Harry S. Truman, written in retirement, are valuable for his comments on the presidency and on the proper way to run the Bureau of the Budget. Other correspondents with whom she discussed public affairs include J. William Fulbright, George Kennan, Thomas K. Finletter, the cartoonist Herbert Block ("Herblock"), Harry S. Ashmore, and Marquis Childs. A group of letters from Julian P. Boyd during the 1960s provides information on Meyer's conferences at Mount Kisco, New York, with foreign and domestic leaders on a variety of national and international problems.
Some of the more important Subject Files in the papers are those on the Washington Post, the newspaper purchased by Eugene Meyer in 1933 and to which Agnes Meyer frequently contributed special articles; Seven Springs Farm, the Meyer home in Mount Kisco; Barnard College; the President's Commission on Higher Education; and the National Committee for the Support of Public Schools.
Also in the collection is extensive and significant Family Correspondence . There is a fine series of letters from Agnes Meyer to her husband beginning in 1909 and continuing throughout their lives. She also wrote regularly to her children and, in the course of time, to her grandchildren. They in turn kept in close touch with her while away at college and in later years.
[1] Adaptation of a description of the first installment of the collection as it appeared in the Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress 31, no. 4 (October 1974): 252-255