Joseph Pulitzer
Joseph Pulitzer was born in Hungary, where his father was a respected and successful businessman whose fortune was lost after his death, leaving his family bankrupt and living in abject poverty. Pulitzer traveled to the United States during the American Civil War, enticed by army recruiters in Boston who paid for his passage. Upon arrival he learned that his passage had been paid from his promised enlistment bonus, with what was left going into the pockets of the recruiters. Dejected, Pulitzer left the Boston recruiting camp and went to New York, where he accepted a $200 bonus to join Sheridan’s Cavalry, where he found a large contingent of German and Hungarian speaking troopers.
After the war Pulitzer found little in the way of work, and slept on the streets or in empty delivery wagons, scrounging for food. He hopped a train to St. Louis, where he discovered a large German community in the post-war city. Pulitzer continued to encounter difficulty obtaining and holding work, in part due to his size and lack of physical strength, a requirement for most labor of the time. He managed to work as a waiter for a time, in different restaurants around the city. During his time off he taught himself English at library.
Eventually Pulitzer landed a job as a reporter with a newspaper that served the German community of St. Louis. He discovered a previously unknown aptitude for the work. After becoming an American citizen he joined the Republican Party, though he became disgusted at the corruption he discovered and switched to the Democratic Party in 1872. That same year he purchased shares in his employer’s newspaper and sold them the following year at a significant profit. In 1878 he purchased two St. Louis English newspapers and merged them into the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Pulitzer used his position as publisher to reshape the paper into a politically powerful voice.
Pulitzer famously practiced yellow journalism, publishing exposes and populist opinions, and the circulation of the paper grew with the city of St. Louis. In 1883 he purchased the New York World, which he expanded through the use of sensationalism, emphasizing crime stories in lurid prose. He was elected to Congress in 1884, but only served half his term, claiming that the business of running his newspapers prevented the execution of his duties to his constituents. He acquired a winter home on Jekyll Island, a summer home in Bar Harbor, Maine, and a yacht to travel between the two, as well as a large home in New York. He ran his papers from all three locations.
Pulitzer was traveling by yacht to Jekyll Island in October 1911 when he stopped for supplies at Charleston Harbor. He remained aboard the yacht, attended by his personal physician, (he had long had serious health issues) and died on October 29, 1911. Pulitzer left Columbia University $2 million ($50 million today) for the establishment of the Columbia University School of Journalism. He had previously helped establish the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri. The Pulitzer Prize was created by Columbia in 1917.
Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“Jack London”, by Alex Kershaw, 1999
“Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller”, by Ron Chernow 2004
“The Incredible Colonel”, by Harland Sanders, 1974
“Commodore Vanderbilt’s Life”, by The New York Times, January 5, 1877
“Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times”, by H. W. Brands, 2005
“Hank Aaron Biography”, entry by ESPN, ESPN online
“Biography: Andrew Carnegie”, entry by The American Experience, pbs.org
“Astor, John Jacob”, Encyclopedia Britannica
“Joseph Pulitzer”, entry, the Jewish Virtual Library, online