Biography
Meyner was born on July 3, 1908 in Easton, Pennsylvania to Gustave Herman Meyner, Sr. (1878–1950) and Maria Sophia Bäumle (1881–1968). His father was a German American silk worker from Manchester, New Hampshire. His mother was German, but born in Birsfelden near Basel in Switzerland to Robert Bäumle from Harpolingen, Baden and to Franziska Oliva Thüring from Istein, Baden. Robert had an older brother, Gustave Herman Meyner Jr. (1907–1996). He also had a younger sister, Olive F. Meyner Wagner (1913–1982).
In 1916, the Meyner family moved across the state border to Phillipsburg, New Jersey. They briefly settled in Paterson, New Jersey but had returned to Phillipsburg by 1922. Meyner graduated from Phillipsburg High School in 1926, and entered Lafayette College, where he majored in government and law. He was a brother of the Alpha Chi Rho fraternity. In 1928, Meyner formed a club supporting Al Smith as a Presidential candidate in the United States presidential election, 1928. Smith was the nominee of the Democratic Party but lost the election to Herbert Hoover of the Republican Party.
In his senior year, Meyner was editor in chief of "The Lafayette", a student newspaper. After his graduation, he moved on to Columbia Law School, where he was awarded an LL.B. degree in 1933.
While still in school, Meyner had been employed as an apprentice coremaker by the Warren Foundry and Pipe Corporation and Ingersoll Rand. During his college years, Meyner was employed as a weaver by the Gunning Silk Company. Following his graduation from Columbia, Meyner found employment as a law clerk in Union City. He was employed by J. Emil Walscheid and Milton Rosenkranz from February, 1933 to April, 1936.
Read more about this topic: Robert B. Meyner
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West [Cicily Isabel Fairfield] (1892–1983)