Joseph Pulitzer

Joseph Pulitzer
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 9th district
In office March 4, 1885 – April 10, 1886
Preceded by	John Hardy
Succeeded by	Samuel S. Cox
Born	10 April 1847(1847-04-10) Makó, Kingdom of Hungary, Austrian Empire
Died	29 October 1911 (aged 64) Charleston, South Carolina, United States
Political party	Democratic
Occupation	Publisher, philanthropist, journalist, lawyer
Religion	Jewish
Net worth	USD $30 million at the time of his death (approximately 1/1142nd of US GNP)
Military service
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	Union Army
Years of service	1864–1865
Unit	First Regiment, New York Cavalry
Battles/wars	American Civil War

Joseph Pulitzer (10 April 1847 – 29 October 1911), born József Pulitzer, was a Hungarian Jew who became an influential newspaper publisher in the United States.

Life

Pulitzer was a Jewish journalist and publisher in the United States, who created along with William Randolph Hearst a new and controversial type of journalism. Pulitzer saw himself as a crusader on the side of people and a spokesman for democracy. He supported labor, attacked trusts and monopolies, and revealed political corruption. When journalism was not a respectable way of earning one's living, Pulitzer was committed to raising the standards of the profession. Pulitzer was the founder of the Pulitzer Prizes. Today the most prestigious prize in American journalism is named after him.

"There is room in this great and growing city for a journal that is not only cheap but bright, not only bright but large, not only large but truly democratic... that will expose all fraud and sham; fight all public evils and abuses; that will serve and battle for the people with earnest sincerity." (Joseph Pulitzer in assuming proprietorship of The New York World)

Joseph Pulitzer was born as the eldest son of Hungarian Jews. His father, Philip, was a prosperous grain merchant, who died when Joseph was eleven. A few years later his mother married Max Blau, a businessmann. Pulitzer was educated in private schools in Budapest. In 1864 he emigrated from Hungary to the United States, landing at Castle Garden practically penniless. The Austrian army had rejected him for his weak eyesight, and the French Foreign Legion did not accept him, but in the new country he served in I. Company of the First New York Lincoln Cavalry until the end of the Civil War.

Pulitzer was fluent in German, French, and Hungarian, but his English was still awkward after the war. Like many of his generation a Pulitzer went West to seek his fortune. His first business as a boss stevedore in St. Louis failed. Pulitzer worked as a waiter, buried cholera victims of 1866 on Arsenal Island, and eventually found work as a reporter, first in St. Louis on the Westliche Post, a German-language newspaper. "He was a born reporter", said one of his colleagues later. Later, in 1871 he acquired a part ownership of the paper. In the 1860s he participated in politics and studied law, but practised only a short time. In 1869 he was elected to the Missouri Legislature and in 1874 Pulitzer was admitted to the bar in Washington, D.C., where he worked as a correspondent of the New York Sun. In 1877 he married Kate Davis, a niece of Jefferson Davis.

The purchase of the New York World in 1883 from the controversial financier Jay Gould turned out to be a successful decision, and made Pulitzer wealthy. The magazine increased in stature through its crusades against great business monopolies, lotteries, and white slavery. In 1885 he was elected to Congress from New York, but he resigned after a few months' service. Two years later he founded the Evening World in New York, although at that time he already had begun to withdraw from direct management of his publications. At the age of forty, he was struck blind, but he still continued to run his press empire for twenty-two more years.

In 1890s, Pulitzer had a circulation war with William Randolph Hearst, and his newspapers were accused of "yellow journal" practices. Using strong headlines, sensational news events, cartoons and other means they especially tried to attract working class readers and immigrants. The World increased its circulation with a comic supplement and in 1895 the first full-page original 'Yellow Kid' cartoon in color appeared, created by the cartoonist Richard F. Outcault (1863-1928). However, the name had nothing to do with "yellow journalism." In the New York Sunday World Pulitzer gave the staff creative freedom, which translated into creative output. By purchasing in 1898 a new high-speed color printing press, Pulitzer created graphically one of the most impressive papers of the time. In the circulation war Pulitzer suffered a small drawback when Outcault moved to the New York Journal, one of Hearst's papers. Hearst, on the other hand, was also enthralled by the high quality of Pulitzer's papers. The writer Theodore Dreiser saw it differently - that the staff had in their eyes the look of tortured animals. To get even, Pulitzer hired the artist George Luks to draw cartoons using Outcault's characters.

The Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers showed their power in 1898: The World urged President McKinley to declare war against Spain. Hearst claimed that he had “brought on” the Spanish-American War, although there are doubts that he issued the command to Frederick Remington: "You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war." Pulitzer died of heart disease aboard his yacht, the Liberty, on October 29, 1911. Before his death his German secretary had been reading him an account of the reign of Louis XI of France (1423-1483), who broke the power of the nobility. The Pulitzer-Hearst circulation battle lasted well into the 20th century.

Through his will, he established the Columbia University School of Journalism, which was one of his chief desires, and annual Pulitzer Prizes for literature, drama, music, and journalism. In this he followed in the footsteps of Alfred B. Nobel (1833-1896), the inventor of dynamite, who established through his will the Nobel Foundation with its awards.

American Civil War

Pulitzer tried to join the military but was rejected by the Austrian Army. He then tried to join the French Foreign Legion to fight in Mexico but was similarly rejected, and then the British Army and was again rejected. He was finally recruited in Hamburg, German Confederation, to fight for the Union in the American Civil War in August 1864. Pulitzer could not speak English when he arrived in Boston Harbor in 1864 at the age of 17, his passage having been paid by Massachusetts military recruiters. Learning that the recruiters were pocketing the lion's share of his enlistment bounty, Pulitzer left the Deer Island recruiting station and made his way to New York.

He was paid $200 to enlist in the Lincoln Cavalry on 30 September 1864. He was a part of Sheridan's troopers, in the 1st New York Cavalry Regiment in Company L, joining the regiment in Virginia in November 1864, and fighting in the Appomattox Campaign, before being mustered out on 5 June 1865. Although he spoke mainly German, but also Hungarian, and French, Pulitzer learned little English until after the war, as his regiment was composed mostly of German immigrants.

Allied psychological warfare

At the end of World War II, there were organized American Allied psychological warfare / propaganda tours of captured Western Holocaust camps for various groups, such as Americans journalists, including Pulitzer. Pulitzer

"was so incensed by what he saw at the camps that he launched a campaign of public education. Pulitzer sought to dispel the belief in America that this talk of German atrocities was mostly propaganda. In cooperation with the federal government, Pulitzer’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch conducted an exhibition of life-size photomurals made from the Signal Corps photographs of the camps. The photo exhibit was coupled with the showing of an hour-long motion picture documentary on the camps produced by the Signal Corps." See also Western Holocaust camps.

"at a mass meeting with New York Mayor La Guardia in 1945, Jewish newspaper mogul Joseph Pulitzer called for the killing of one and a half million Nazis, the German General Staff, industrialists and bankers "with army bullets through their heads." The New York Times of 23 May 1945 reported at length on this rally and Pulitzer's proposal without any criticism whatsoever."

Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prizes, originally endowed with a gift of $500,000 from Joseph Pulitzer, are highly esteemed and have been awarded since 1917. However, it took years before they made a significant impact on the public. In the journalism the Prizes were awarded in the 1920s for exposing the practices of the Ku Klux Klan, revealing the dehumanizing prison conditions and exploring the problems of labor during a national coal strike. The novel prize was to be given only to a work 'which shall best present the whole atmosphere of American life, and the highest standard of American manners and manhood'.

The wording has been since changed from 'whole atmosphere' to 'wholesome atmosphere'. In 1921 the advisory board unanimously turned down Sinclair Lewis' Main Street, recommended by the jury, and chose instead Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence. The awards in letters are for fiction, drama, U.S. history, biography or autobiography, verse and nonfiction not covered by another category. The prizes are awarded annually by Columbia University, New York City. The novel award, which was changed to an award in fiction in 1948, has proved to be the most controversial.

Jews have won 52% of the Pulitzer awards for nonfiction. The Jewish owned The New York Times has won more Pulitzer Prizes than any other newspaper.

See also

• Spanish-American War - Promoted by Pulitzer.
• The New Colossus - Promoted by Pulitzer.
• The New York Times
• Western Holocaust camps