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 People's 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 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.[1] Myers split with the Socialist Party in 1917 over the SPA's 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 "Germany's Sinister Propaganda" entitled The German Myth: The Falsity of Germany's "Social Progress" Claims. Myers received a Guggenheim ...
