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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Joseph Pulitzer Biography PULITZER, Joseph (1847–1911). An American journalist, born in Budapest, Hungary, April 10, 1847. His father was a Jew and his mother a Roman Catholic. In his boyhood he had only such education as could be gained within a short period from a private tutor. At 17 he emigrated to the United States, where in the same year (1864) he enlisted in the First New York Cavalry to serve in the Civil War. At the close of the war, unable to get work in New York, he managed to reach St. Louis. Here he became successful as a reporter on Carl Schurz's Westliche Post, a German Republican paper. Of this he later (1871) became managing editor and part owner. He also studied law and was admitted to the Missouri bar. In 1869 he had been elected to the State Legislature, and he was a member of the Missouri Constitutional Convention of 1874. In national politics Pulitzer gained a name when as a delegate to the Liberal Republican convention in 1872 he vigorously supported the nomination of Horace Greeley for the presidency. But later he allied himself definitely with the Democratic party, and as a consequence severed his connection with the Westliche Post. In 1876–77 he was in Washington as correspondent of the New York Sun, Charles A. Dana having selected him to report the proceedings of the Electoral Commission, and soon afterward he went to Europe as a special correspondent of the same paper. In 1879 he bought the St. Louis Evening Dispatch and Evening Post, combined them as the Post-Dispatch, and built up a flourishing plant. But although he continued to control this paper, Pulitzer's great work was in the development of the New York World, which he acquired from Jay Gould in 1883. From then until the presidential election of 1884 he championed Grover Cleveland's candidacy, proving himself an important factor in the Democratic success. In 1884 he was elected to Congress, but he resigned after three months. The World under his direction struck out on pioneer lines of appeal to popular taste. Crisply and ably written news columns, straightforward, purposeful, and unacademic editorials, and a frank policy of featuring, for the sake of "human interest," stories of a sensational character, built up a circulation that had no rival until the advent of the Hearst papers. Although a man of extraordinary energy, Pulitzer broke down in 1887 from overwork. And even after this, an invalid, blind, and absent on long cruises in his steam yacht, he exercised a minute supervision over all the affairs of the World. In 1903 he announced that he would bequeath to Columbia University $1,000,000 to build and endow a school of journalism and would provide that an additional million be turned over if after a specified period the school was in successful operation. Classes were instituted in 1912, and the building was finished in 1913, Mr. Pulitzer having died Oct. 29, 1911. To the Philharmonic Orchestra of New York he left $500,000. His estate was appraised at more than $20,000,000. Ralph Pulitzer succeeded his father as owner of the World. Consult J. L. Heaton, The Story of a Page (New York, 1913); also Alleyne Ireland, Joseph Pulitzer (ib., 1914). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XIX (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 361. |