Image courtesy of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, Museum Artifacts Collection, Artifact No. 1973.1.30

Robert B. Meyner

United States, 1908 - 1990

Robert B. Meyner was an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 44th Governor of New Jersey, from 1954 to 1962; before being elected Governor, Meyner represented Warren County in the New Jersey Senate from 1948 to 1951; he was born on July 3, 1908 in Easton, Pennsylvania; his family moved to New Jersey in 1916; he attended Lafayette College, where he majored in government and law; he was awarded an LL. B. degree from Columbia Law School in 1933; he was employed as a law clerk by J. Emil Walscheid and Milton Rosenkranz from February 1933 to April 1936; he then became a well-known trial lawyer in Phillipsburg, N.J.; during World War II, Meyner served as an officer in the Navy, and he was discharged with the rank of Lieutenant Commander; after a failed run for federal office, he was elected to the state senate in 1947; he served as the Governor of New Jersey from January 19, 1954 to January 16,1962; Meyne’’s wife, Helen Stevenson Meyner, whom he married on January 19, 1957 in Oberlin, Ohio, served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1975-1979.