Gustavus Myers
| Gustavus Myers | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
March 20, 1872 Trenton, New Jersey, United States |
| Died | December 7, 1942 (aged 70) Bronx, New York |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Journalist and author |
Gustavus Myers (1872–1942) was an American journalist and historian who published a series of influential studies on wealth accumulation. His name is associated with the muckraking era of U.S. literature.
Gustavus Myers was born March 20, 1872, in Trenton, New Jersey, the son of Julia Hillman and Abram Myers. He attended school for a time while the impoverished family lived in Philadelphia. His father was largely absent. At the age of 14, Gustavus began working in a factory. He continued his own education by reading avidly and attending public lectures. His older brother, Jerome Myers, became a painter associated with the Ashcan School. Gustavus married Genevieve Whitne, Massachusetts, on September 23, 1904, and they had two children together.
In 1891, 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.
In the 1890s, Myers became a member of the People's Party (commonly known as the "Populists"), later joining the Socialist Party of America (SPA). He published 'The History of Tammany Hall' in 1901.
Myers was interested in parapsychology, he published Beyond the Borderline of Life (1910). In the decade of the 1910s, he emerged as a leading scholar of the American socialist movement when he authored a series of volumes for Charles H. Kerr & Co., the country's largest publisher of Marxist books and pamphlets. Between 1909 and 1914, 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. These publications were frequently cited and used in an academic setting for several decades, with Myers' History of the Great American Fortunes revived in a single volume format in 1936.
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