Golda Meir House

A Brief Overview

Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (1898-1978) was one of the Twentieth Century’s most influential women, a powerful international leader and diplomat who greatly impacted the course of history. The Golda Meir House Museum on the Auraria Campus is the only known U.S. residence of this important woman, a standing tribute to her commitment to freedom, peace and human dignity. The museum celebrates the theme inspired by Golda’s life – the story of a woman from a low income, ethnic environment whose ideals and dedication changed the world.

Golda Meir

Golda Meir was born Goldie Mabovitch in Kiev, Russia, May 3, 1898. In 1906, she and her family fled to the United States to escape religious persecution along with thousands of other Russian Jews. The family settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Golda was a brilliant student who showed her humanitarian instincts by age 11, when she organized an elaborate fundraising program to collect money so that poor children could buy school books. When she became a teenager, Goldie wanted to go on to high school and become a teacher.

Her parents had already picked a husband for her, however, and married women were not allowed to teach in Milwaukee. In 1913, she ran away from home to pursue her education in Denver, Colorado.

She joined her sister Shayna, brother-in-law Sam, and niece Judith at 1606-1608 Julian Street, a modest brick duplex less than a mile from the present Auraria Campus. Golda attended North High School for nearly two years before rejoining her parents in Milwaukee, working part time as a presser for her brother-in-law at Korngold’s Cleaning and Pressing Works, near the Brown Palace Hotel.

The Korngold house was considered a social and intellectual haven by numerous Jewish immigrants from Russia. Most of them had traveled out West for treatment at Denver’s famous Jewish Hospital for Consumptives (Jewish Consumptive Relief Society and National Jewish Hospital), and were either ill or recently recovered from tuberculosis. In this environment, Goldie discussed politics, served tea, met her future husband Morris Meyerson, and developed her future political philosophy. She became deeply involved with Zionism and made the decision to emigrate to Israel.

The importance of Golda’s Denver experience is documented in her 1975 autobiography My Life, where she states, “It was in Denver that my real education began…”