Blog
Benjamin Graham met my grandmother Hazel Mazur when they were both driven teenagers. Ben attended Columbia College on scholarship, excelling at his rigorous course load while working more than full-time, on track to graduate second in his class. Hazel, still in high...
Blog
Long before protests erupted on the Columbia College campus, pictured above in 1910, the teenaged Benjamin Graham attended Columbia on scholarship and took his first investment risk. Most college students don’t think about investing—they have no cash to spare. That...
Blog
How did a nerdy math major like Benjamin Graham meet girls? My grandfather was a nineteen-year-old scholarship student at Columbia when he met a girl named Alda Miller. In the 1910s, Columbia was a men’s college. Barnard educated women at a separate location. Ben’s...
Blog
While Benjamin Graham spent the summer of 1910 toiling on a farm, he pinned his hopes on newspaper mogul Joseph Pulitzer as his future benefactor. This portrait of Joseph Pulitzer, painted in 1905 by John Singer Sargent, conveys the power the man held in Ben...
Blog
If you just read Ben Graham’s Blunder (#11), you might wonder as I do how Ben explained his late arrival in New Milford to Mr. Barman—the farmer who sent him a ticket and instructed him to catch the 4:30 p.m. train. Ben missed that train and battled to stay awake all...
Blog
Ben Graham hefted his black valise and bade his tearful mother goodbye. In June of 1910, Ben had just graduated third in his class at Brooklyn’s elite Boys High School. He had recently turned sixteen—two years younger than his classmates due to skipped grades. He’d...
