Words at War Your School Your Children The Cross and the Arrow Scapegoats in History

Gustavus Myers 1872--1942 was an American journalist and historian who published a series of influential studies on capital formation His name is associated with the muckraking era of American literature

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[1]

In the 1890s Myers became a member of the Peoples Party commonly known as the Populists later joining the Socialist Party of America SPA[1]

In the decade of the 1910s Myers emerged as a leading scholar of the American socialist movement when he authored a series of volumes for Charles H Kerr Co the countrys 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[1]

Myers split with the Socialist Party in 1917 over the SPAs position against American intervention in World War I[1] In 1918 Myers contributed to the American war effort by publishing a book attacking what he called Germanys Sinister Propaganda entitled The German Myth The Falsity of Germanys Social Progress Claims

Myers received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1941 which he used to write a book entitled History of Bigotry in the United States[1] Myers died before the work could be published however with Random House releasing the work only after his death

Gustavus Myers died December 7 1942 in Bronx New York He was 70 years old at the time of his death

Myers papers are housed at the American Heritage Center of the University of Wyoming at Laramie Included in the 25 cubic feet 71 L of archival material are photographs of Myers and the manuscripts of two unpublished non-fiction books[2] A finding aid is available on site

In 1984 the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights was founded From 2001 until 2008 the Myers Center gave out annual awards for books which are outstanding in helping shed light on bigotry in America[3] In 2009 the year of the Myers Centers 25th Anniversary the center was closed due to lack of