LuEsther Turner Mertz (December 30, 1905,

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

– February 5, 1991, Port Washington, New York) was a businesswoman and philanthropist. She was the youngest child of a Methodist minister and his wife and trained as a librarian at

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

. In 1953, LuEsther and her husband, Harold Mertz, along with their daughter, Joyce, founded

Publishers Clearing House Publishers Clearing House (PCH) is a direct marketing company that markets merchandise and magazine subscriptions with sweepstakes and prize-based games. It was founded in 1953 by Harold Mertz to replace door-to-door magazine subscription sal ...

. Over the years, Publishers Clearing House grew from an initial mailing of 10,000 letters to a marketing legend. Mrs. Mertz was active in the company's management, serving as a member of its executive committee until her death in 1991. In 1962 she founded Choice Magazine Listening, an audio anthology of magazine writing for the

visually impaired Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment� ...

. She believed that visually impaired people and those with disabilities that prevented them from

reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...

standard print should have access to the same magazine writing as sighted people. She established the

nonprofit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

Lucerna Fund to support the efforts of Choice Magazine Listening. She went on to become a major supporter of

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 millio ...

Central Park Conservancy The Central Park Conservancy is a private, nonprofit park conservancy that manages Central Park under a contract with the City of New York and NYC Parks. The conservancy employs most maintenance and operations staff in the park. It effectively ...

New York City Ballet New York City Ballet (NYCB) is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company. Léon Barzin was the company' ...

New York Shakespeare Festival Shakespeare in the Park (or Free Shakespeare in the Park) is a theatrical program that stages productions of Shakespearean plays at the Delacorte Theater, an open-air theater in New York City's Central Park. The theater and the productions ar ...

, Joyce Theater Foundation,

New York Botanical Garden The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden at Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, ...

, the Center for Conservation Biology at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, The Public Theater, Joseph Papp's Public Theater, and the American Civil Liberties Union. In her own town she served as a trustee of the Port Washington Public Library and was a founding member of the Port Washington League of Women Voters. LuEsther Mertz was awarded the Mayor's Award for Arts and Culture in 1983 and the New York State Governor's Arts Award in 1986. In 1980, Dennis Murphy and Paul Ehrlich of the Center for Conservation Biology named a subspecies of the Edith's checkerspot butterfly, ''Euphydryas editha luestherae'', in her honor.Murphy DD, Ehrlich PR. (1980)
Two California checkerspot butterfly subspecies: one new, one on the verge of extinction.
''Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society'' 34:316–320. Since her death in 1991, aged 85, the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust has contributed to core programs at the

in horticulture, science, and visitor services, as well as to the construction of the Garden Cafe and Terrace Room, an important visitor amenity that opened in 1997. The LuEsther T. Mertz Library is named after her. The trust also donates annually to 13 other named beneficiaries.

References

External links

''New York Times'' obituary

Choice Magazine Listening
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mertz, Luesther 1905 births 1991 deaths 20th-century American businesswomen 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American philanthropists American Methodists Philanthropists from New York (state) Blindness Businesspeople from Ohio People from Long Island Syracuse University alumni