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The Pulitzer Prizes

The Pulitzer Prizes

According to the terms of newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer’s will, after his death the awards known as the Pulitzer Prizes were created to recognize significant work in fiction, biography, drama, education, and journalism. A special committee consisting of working journalists and members of Columbia University’s faculty was established to choose recipients from among nominees each year. The first prizes were awarded in 1917. Over the years, categories have been added, so that by the end of the twentieth century Pulitzer Prizes were also awarded for poetry, music, and photography. Recipients are presented a certificate and a cash award, but the real value of receiving a Pulitzer has always been the recognition given to an individual or organization fortunate enough to be chosen as a winner.

Many well-known American writers and musicians have been honored with Pulitzer Prizes for literary and musical compositions, including Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and Toni Morrison for fiction; Richard Wilbur for poetry; Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller for drama; Vernon Louis Parrington and Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., in history; and Wynton Marsalis in music. Because the award recognizes a particular work, however, the Pulitzer has often gone to less well-known individuals whose novels, histories, poems, dramas, or musical compositions stood out from among the nominees.

The idea of treating journalism as serious literature was a radical notion at the beginning of the twentieth century, but Pulitzer wanted to recognize the contributions journalists made to American society by equating the practice of news reporting and writing with other forms of literary art. Over time, however, the most coveted prize has been the award of a gold medal for public service journalism. Newspapers large and small have been honored for stellar reporting on events of significance to their readership. Perhaps no Pulitzer has been more widely recognized than the one awarded in 1973 to The Washington Post for its coverage of the Watergate break-in and its aftermath, a series that was instrumental in forcing Richard Nixon to resign the presidency of the United States.


See Also

Great Lives from History: The Incredibly Wealthy

Joseph Pulitzer

by Laurence W. Mazzeno

American newspaper editor and publisher

Pulitzer developed techniques of reporting and publishing that led to increased circulation and advertising revenue at two major urban newspapers, allowing him to generate great personal profits. He helped create the modern newspaper industry and established journalism as a respected profession in America.

Source of wealth: Media

Bequeathal of wealth: Spouse; children; educational institution; Pulitzer Prizes

Early Life

Joseph Pulitzer (PYEWL-ihts-ehr) was born in Makó, Hungary, the child of middle-class parents who provided him a good education. Nevertheless, constant arguments with his stepfather drove Pulitzer to emigrate to the United States, where he enlisted in the Union army in 1864. After the Civil War, he drifted about looking for work, and he was nearly destitute when he arrived in St. Louis, Missouri. Within a few years, however, he had managed to acquire an education in the law, develop a passion for the news business, and become an American citizen. He worked at various newspapers as a reporter and eventually was made editor of the German-language Westliche Post. Although he continued doing legal work for several years, Pulitzer realized that his passion was for journalism.

First Ventures

Pulitzer’s work ethic at the Westliche Post so impressed the owners that in 1872 they made him managing partner and allowed him to become part owner by purchasing shares on credit. To their dismay, his overbearing nature as an editor and publisher made them quickly regret their decision. Within months they bought him out, paying him $30,000 for his interest. Although Pulitzer used some of his money to travel, in 1874 he spent several thousand dollars at auction to buy the bankrupt newspaper Staats-Zeitung, realizing that its Associated Press franchise was a valuable asset. He sold the newspaper almost immediately for $20,000, a considerable sum, given that the average annual income at the time was $450 to $500. Another stint of traveling took him to Washington, D.C., where he worked briefly for the New York Sun covering the 1876 presidential election. In 1878, he married southern socialite Kate Davis; during the next two decades the couple would have seven children. Later in 1878, Pulitzer was back in St. Louis, ready to invest his savings in another newspaper, the bankrupt Evening Dispatch. Once again, Pulitzer bid at auction, paying $2,500 for the assets and vowing to turn a profit on his investment.

Mature Wealth

Joseph Pulitzer.

ph_gliw-Pulitzer.jpg

Within months Pulitzer transformed the nearly defunct Evening Dispatch into the widely read and highly profitable newspaper he renamed the Post-Dispatch after combining it with competitor John A. Dillon’s Evening Post. Pulitzer’s first move as owner was to hire a highly competent staff of reporters, editors, and advertising sales personnel and pay them well, a practice he continued throughout his career. In 1879, he bought out the Evening Star, thereby gaining a monopoly on the evening news market in St. Louis.

Pulitzer was a hands-on publisher, writing copy himself and closely supervising employees. A liberal Democrat, he supported reformist causes but consistently touted the independence of his newspaper. The Post-Dispatch attacked corruption in government and the private sector, adopting principles of reporting that would eventually come to be known as sensationalist journalism. Circulation soared, and with increased sales came substantial profits, largely from advertising revenues. In his first year as publisher of the Post-Dispatch, Pulitzer netted a profit of $80,000 after paying nearly $100,000 in expenses. During the next five years, his income from the newspaper continued to increase, and by 1883 he had established his family in a fashionable neighborhood in St. Louis and was earning more than $100,000 annually.

This handsome income allowed him to fulfill a dream he had nurtured for a decade: to purchase a New York City newspaper. In 1875, he had made an unsuccessful bid for New York’s Belletristiche Journal. Nine years later and possessing considerably more resources, Pulitzer bought the struggling New York World from railroad tycoon and financier Jay Gould for $346,000, paying $100,000 in cash and deferring the remainder, which he paid over the next several years out of the profits from the revitalized newspaper. Even in the highly competitive New York City market, where several morning newspapers vied for readership, Pulitzer was phenomenally successful. When Pulitzer took over the World, its circulation stood at less than fifteen thousand. By the fall of 1884, the New York World’s circulation exceeded 100,000; in 1890, the daily edition had a circulation of nearly 300,000. Pulitzer’s competition with rival William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal only led to increased efforts at providing more sensational news accounts that in turn attracted even more readers. At the end of the century, circulation at the World exceeded one million.

As he had done at the Post-Dispatch, which he continued to own and run in absentia, Pulitzer used the World to expose corruption and champion causes important to the working classes. At both newspapers he was extremely innovative. Always a believer that sensational reporting helped sell newspapers, over the course of his career Pulitzer introduced multicolumn banner headlines, pioneered sports reporting and sections devoted to women’s issues, and experimented with story placement. Curiously, although he was eager to become wealthy, his newspapers often exposed the greed of other millionaires whose wealth was ostensibly accumulated at the expense of the common people. Powerful politicians were also frequent targets of Pulitzer’s wrath, and a feud between him and Republican politician Theodore Roosevelt ended up in the courts, where Pulitzer was eventually able to win a nasty libel suit. Ironically, Pulitzer made a brief foray into national politics in 1886, running successfully for Congress. He resigned the following spring, however, finding he could not serve in Washington, D.C., and run his newspapers successfully.

A shrewd businessman as well as a committed journalist, Pulitzer realized that growth in circulation provided the opportunity to generate additional advertising, and by the mid-1880’s he had increased advertising by eighteenfold. Revenue from advertising produced the real profits for a publisher—in Pulitzer’s case, more than $500,000 annually by 1886. The bulk of any dividends declared from these profits went to Pulitzer as principal shareholder in the corporation he had set up to run the World.

By 1885, he was able to provide his wife an annual allowance of $100,000, purchase a mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York City, and contribute to a number of political and social causes for which he had special sympathy. Over the next twenty years he and his family lived luxuriously, his wife enjoying frequent overseas trips, where she spent lavishly on the latest fashions. The Pulitzers also accumulated an enviable collection of artwork, which they displayed in a series of increasingly elegant mansions that they acquired in fashionable New York neighborhoods.

Of course, some of the World’s profits went back into the business to pay for state-of-the-art printing presses and reward employees who helped make the newspaper a success. In 1890, Pulitzer paid $2.5 million to construct the New York World building in downtown Manhattan. When it was completed it was the tallest building in the city. Unfortunately, by this time Pulitzer was unable to attend its opening. In 1888, he suffered a breakdown that robbed him of his eyesight and made him especially sensitive to noises. Although he continued to direct operations at the World and to a lesser extent at the Post-Dispatch, Pulitzer became a virtual recluse, sending memos and telegrams to his managers while spending most of his time at his retreat in Maine, at various resorts in Europe, or at sea. In 1907, he spent $1.5 million for a specially designed yacht, the Liberty, aboard which he could enjoy the quiet respite that urban life denied him. During the last decade of his life, he became a strong advocate for a new brand of journalism that stressed accuracy and fairness in reporting. Pulitzer died in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1911.

Legacy

Pulitzer left an estate of more than $18 million, as well as several homes. Beneficiaries included several charities and nonprofit organizations; the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Philharmonic Society each received $1 million. He established an endowment of $2.5 million to provide for his widow, and he made smaller bequests to his daughters and some longtime employees. The bulk of his estate, his stock in the World and Post-Dispatch, was divided among his three sons; Herbert received 60 percent, Ralph, 20 percent, and Joseph, 10 percent, with the remaining 10 percent dispersed among key employees of the newspapers. Sadly, although the World was considered the flagship of the Pulitzer empire, Ralph and Herbert were able to maintain it as a family corporation only until 1931, when they sold out to the Scripps-Howard chain. Under Joseph Pulitzer II, however, the Post-Dispatch continued to flourish and remained one of America’s most prestigious newspapers throughout the twentieth century.

By far the most notable bequest Pulitzer made was to Columbia University. In 1902, Pulitzer began negotiating with university president Nicholas Murray Butler to establish a journalism school at Columbia and create a series of prizes to recognize accomplishments in various literary fields, including journalism. In his will, Pulitzer left $2 million to Columbia to carry out this plan. The School of Journalism opened in 1912, the year after Pulitzer died, and at the 1917 commencement the university honored the first recipients of what would become America’s most prestigious annual awards for literature: the Pulitzer Prizes.

Further Reading

1 

Brian, Denis. Pulitzer: A Life. New York: Wiley, 2001. Scholarly biography that examines Pulitzer’s contributions to the newspaper industry and comments extensively on his personal life.

2 

Harris, Roy J. Pulitzer’s Gold: Behind the Prize for Public Service Journalism. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007. Explains the history of the Pulitzer Prizes, focusing on the award for public service journalism, and discusses some of the more memorable winners.

3 

Juergens, George. Joseph Pulitzer and the “New York World.” Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967. Detailed critique of Pulitzer’s achievements at the New York World, explaining how his work there led to the creation of the modern newspaper industry.

4 

Rammelkamp, Julian S. Pulitzer’s “Post-Dispatch,” 1878-1883. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967. Critical evaluation of Pulitzer’s many innovations that led to the success of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch during the first six years that Pulitzer served as its owner and publisher.

5 

Swanberg, W. A. Pulitzer. New York: Scribner’s, 1967. Biography tracing Pulitzer’s rise to prominence in the newspaper industry, examining his family relationships and detailing his battles to become the dominant force in journalism during the late nineteenth century.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Mazzeno, Laurence W. "Joseph Pulitzer." Great Lives from History: The Incredibly Wealthy, edited by Howard Bromberg, Salem Press, 2010. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GLIW_1322369001322.
APA 7th
Mazzeno, L. W. (2010). Joseph Pulitzer. In H. Bromberg (Ed.), Great Lives from History: The Incredibly Wealthy. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Mazzeno, Laurence W. "Joseph Pulitzer." Edited by Howard Bromberg. Great Lives from History: The Incredibly Wealthy. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2010. Accessed October 22, 2025. online.salempress.com.