Paul August (1882, Hanover–1975, New York) and Hilde Monkemeyer (born Neumann) (1907, Berlin–2001, New York) were both born in Germany. In 1932, after finishing her doctorate in Berlin, probably in economics with the title Probleme der freien oder gebundenen getreidewirtschaft, insbesondere in Deutschland, Hilde Monkemeyer worked as a journalist in Berlin. No more information on her life, or that of her husband Paul August Monkmeyer, is available.

As Jews, it is presumed that they emigrated to New York in the mid-1930s and, in 1935/36, founded the Monkmeyer Photo Service photo agency. The agency was located on 225 Fifth Avenue, not exactly in Midtown Manhattan like other émigré photo agencies like Black Star, PIX, Rapho Guillumette, European Picture Service, Camera Features and Three Lions, but in central Manhattan nonetheless.

Almost no information on the agency's specialisation or how it was run exists today. However, in Minicam magazine, issue October 1941, Monkemeyer was listed among agencies and photo service suppliers providing colour photo services in New York. Attached was the following description: the agency “buys 4x5’’ and larger Kodachromes of girls and children, paying $35.00 and up per shot. Does not want landscape and still-lifes” (Bailey 1941, 22). Black Star agency was described as specialising in “action shots of pretty girls, children and sports” (Bailey 1941, 22), PIX photo agency as being interested in “picture stories and shots of famous places in the United States”, while European Picture Service was described as offering a “good market for color pictures of babies and girls, preferably beach and outdoor shots for cover use” (Bailey 1941, 22).

Little research has been done on which photographers were commissioned by Monkmeyer. Reportages by the German émigré photographers Carola Gregor and Fritz Henle were credited with Monkmeyer. Other photo agencies founded by émigrés such as Black Star, PIX, Rapho Guillumette, European Picture Service, Camera Features and Three Lions acted as a network between émigré photographers and the American and worldwide magazine and photo publishing market, so it can be assumed that other émigrés as well as American photographers worked for Monkmeyer. During the 1950s the American photographers Nancy Campbell Hays, Roy Pinney and Georgia Engelhardt, as well as the German photographer Carl Strüwe, were represented by the agency. Monkmeyer existed until 2000 and acted within a worldwide network.