The Washington Post; The First 100 Years

Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1977. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Good. xiii, [3], 495, [1] pages. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. Gift insert plate signed by Katharine Graham laid in. Some wear to DJ edges. Inscribed by the author on the fep. Inscription reads For Arthur Ellis--one of the real heroes of this book All the best Chal Roberts. Arthur Ellis is reference in the index at pages 193 and 457. Arthur Ellis was a Washington Post staff photographer for nearly a half-century. Mr. Ellis began his career at The Post in 1930. Over the years, he not only took many memorable pictures, but also served as photo editor of this paper in the early 1950s, and was the author of feature stories and book reviews. He had a 47-year career that was interrupted by service in the Army during World War II. At his retirement, he was The Post's chief photographer. Chalmers M. Roberts was chief diplomatic correspondent of The Washington Post and the author of books on such topics as nuclear arms control and the joys of being a grandfather. In a business that has been marked increasingly in recent years by specialization, Mr. Roberts was an old-fashioned generalist. He wrote about the Supreme Court, Congress, occupants of the White House, political campaigns, the redevelopment of Southwest Washington in the early 1950s and the riots that struck the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1965. He was described by Ben Bradlee, a former executive editor of The Post, as a "one-man band who could and did cover any story in the paper." Donald E. Graham, chairman of The Washington Post Co., praised Mr. Roberts's fairness, even-handedness and calm toughness as a reporter. The Washington Post (also known as the Post and, informally, WaPo) is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area. The Post was founded in 1877. In its early years, it went through several owners and struggled both financially and editorially. Financier Eugene Meyer purchased it out of bankruptcy in 1933 and revived its health and reputation, work continued by his successors Katharine and Phil Graham (Meyer's daughter and son-in-law), who bought out several rival publications. The Post's 1971 printing of the Pentagon Papers helped spur opposition to the Vietnam War. Reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein broke the story about a break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate in Washington D.C. and the cover up that followed. The Watergate scandal resulted in the 1974 resignation of President Richard Nixon. In October 2013, the Graham family sold the newspaper to Nash Holdings, a holding company owned by Jeff Bezos, for $250 million. As of 2020 the newspaper had won the Pulitzer Prize 65 times for its work, the second-most of any publication (after The New York Times). It is considered a newspaper of record in the U.S. Post journalists have received 18 Nieman Fellowships and 368 White House News Photographers Association awards. The paper is one of the few remaining American newspapers to operate foreign bureaus.