PULITZER, JOSEPH (1847-1911), American editor and newspaper proprietor, was born in Mako, Hungary, April I 0, 1847. His father, a grain-merchant, was Magyar-Jewish; his mother Austro-German. Pulitzer was educated privately in Buda pest. Excluded from the army as a result of physical defects, and failing in an attempt to join the French Foreign Legion, he was induced by an American agent to emigrate to the United States as a prospective recruit for the Union army. He enrolled in Company L, 1st New York Lincoln cavalry, for a term of one year. Discharged on July 7, 1865, in New York city, he looked in vain for work there. In the autumn he started west for St. Louis, where he arrived penniless.
In St. Louis, with its large German population, Pulitzer's progress was rapid. While making his living by odd employments, he studied for the- bar and was admitted in 1867. On March 6 he was naturalized, and in 1868 he became a reporter on the Westliche-Post staff ; in Dec. 1869 he was elected to the lower house of the legislature. Here he led a successful movement to reform the corrupt county government of St. Louis. When the revolt against Grant led to the Liberal Republican movement in 1871-72, Pulitzer helped to organize this party in Missouri and was one of the secretaries of the Cincinnati convention which nominated Greeley.
Pulitzer then became a newpaper proprietor. Some owners of the Westliche-Post sold him a share on liberal terms. This he soon resold for $30,000, using part of the proceeds for an ex tended tour of Europe. On his return he purchased a moribund German daily, the St. Louis Staats-Zeitung, for a song, and sold its Associated Press franchise to the Globe for $20,000. In 1876 he took an active share in the presidential campaign, breaking loose from all his Republican associates.
On June 1 9, 1878, he married Miss Kate Davis, a distant rela tive of Jefferson Davis. On Dec. 9 of the same year he laid the foundation of his fortune by purchasing at auction the worn out St. Louis Dispatch, paying $2,500 cash and giving a $30,000 lien. This newspaper he merged with the Post, owned by John A. Dillon, as the Post-Dispatch, which immediately began to pay and soon dominated the St. Louis evening field. It was inde pendent in politics and devoted to "hard money" and tariff re form. In 188o Pulitzer became sole owner. He laboured with unremitting energy, and the profits were soon running from $40,000 to $85,000 a year. Unfortunately in Oct. 1882 his chief editorial aid, Col. John A. Cockerill, shot and killed a lawyer,
Col. Alonzo W. Slayback, in a bitter quarrel of political origin. The case did not come before the courts, but public reprobation was so great that the Post-Dispatch lost revenue and Pulitzer thereafter felt unwelcome in St. Louis. He departed for the East in the spring of 1883, and bought the New York World for $346,000, taking possession on May so.
In 1884 he was elected to Congress from the Ninth District, a position he resigned before his term expired. Under its new management the World won an immediate prosperity. It was aided by a quarrel in which its rival, the Herald, became engaged with the newsdealers, and by the Sun's disastrous decision in 1884 to support Benjamin F. Butler for the presidency. By 1886 the annual earnings of the World were more than $5oo,000. With these resources Pulitzer in 1887 established the Evening World, which lost $100,000 the first year, but by 1890 was highly profit able. William R. Hearst's purchase of the New York Journal in 1895 brought the World a powerful competitor, and it met the challenge on Feb. ro, 1896, by reducing its price from two cents to one. The daily circulation of the World quickly rose to 300,00o and its Sunday circulation before the end of 1896 reached 623,000 copies. To the World, as to the Post-Dispatch, Pulitzer gave a tone of aggressive editorial independence. The paper earnestly supported Cleveland in his contests for the presidency in 1884, 1888 and 1892. It was sympathetic to labour, and in 1892 took the side of the striking steel workers at Homestead, Pennsylvania. It opposed Bryan for the presidency in 1896. A year later the World became an advocate of war with Spain, for Pulitzer sympathised with the Cuban struggle for liberty. Mean while Pulitzer's health, including his eyesight, compelled him to live the secluded existence of an invalid, but he kept in intimate touch with the World until within a few weeks of his death in Charleston (S.C.), Oct. 29, 1911.
During his lifetime Pulitzer had given liberally. In 1903 he endowed the School of Journalism of Columbia university, opened in 1912. In his will he established a series of prizes, known as the Pulitzer prizes, to be awarded annually, for letters, the drama, music and newspaper work.