13 Facts About Gustavus Myers

Gustavus Myers was an American journalist and historian who published a series of highly critical and influential studies on the social costs of wealth accumulation.

Gustavus Myers was born March 20,1872, in Trenton, New Jersey, the son of Julia Hillman and Abram Myers.

Gustavus Myers attended school for a time while the impoverished family lived in Philadelphia.

Gustavus Myers continued his own education by reading avidly and attending public lectures.

In 1891, Gustavus Myers went to work as a reporter for the Philadelphia Record, leaving the next year for New York City, where he remained for the rest of his life.

Gustavus Myers published 'The History of Tammany Hall' in 1901, and to explore his interest in parapsychology, Beyond the Borderline of Life in.

Between 1909 and 1914 Gustavus Myers published three volumes on the history of family wealth in the United States, one volume on the same topic for Canada, and a history of the Supreme Court of the United States.

In 1918, Gustavus Myers contributed to the US war effort by publishing a book attacking what he called "Germany's Sinister Propaganda," The German Myth: The Falsity of Germany's "Social Progress" Claims.

Gustavus Myers received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1941, which he used to write a book entitled History of Bigotry in the United States.

Gustavus Myers died on December 7,1942, in Bronx, New York, at the age of 70.

Gustavus Myers is buried in the historic Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

Gustavus Myers has been associated with the muckraking era of US literature, somewhat erroneously, since his work was not journalistic, did not aim at popular magazine publication, and took a scholarly, investigative and documentary approach to its subjects.

Gustavus Myers's papers are housed at the American Heritage Center of the University of Wyoming at Laramie.