Joseph Pulitzer

He was born as Pulitzer József (name order by Hungarian custom) in Makó, about 200 km south-east of Budapest in Hungary, the son of Elize (Berger) and Fülöp Pulitzer (born Politzer).[3][4] The Pulitzers were among several Jewish families living in the area and had established a reputation as merchants and shopkeepers.[5] Joseph's father was a respected businessman, regarded as the second of the "foremost merchants" of Makó. Their ancestors emigrated from Police, Moravia to Hungary at the end of the 18th century.[6]

In 1853, Fülöp Pulitzer was rich enough to retire. He moved his family to Pest, where he had the children educated by private tutors, and taught French and German. In 1858, after Fülöp's death, his business went bankrupt, and the family became impoverished. Joseph attempted to enlist in various European armies for work before emigrating to the United States.[7]

Pulitzer arrived in Boston in 1864 at the age of 17, his passage having been paid by Massachusetts military recruiters who were seeking soldiers for the American Civil War. 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 enroll in the Lincoln Cavalry on September 30.[8] He was a part of Sheridan's troopers, in the First New York Lincoln Cavalry in Company L., where he served for eight months. Although he spoke German, Hungarian, and French, Pulitzer learned little English until after the war, as his regiment was composed mostly of German immigrants.[9]

After the war, Pulitzer returned to New York City, where he stayed briefly. He moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, for the whaling industry, but found it was too boring for him. He returned to New York with little money. Flat broke, he slept in wagons on cobblestone side streets. He decided to travel by "side-door Pullman" (a freight boxcar) to St. Louis, Missouri. He sold his one possession, a white handkerchief, for 75 cents.

When Pulitzer arrived at the city, he recalled, "The lights of St. Louis looked like a promised land to me." In the city, his German was as useful as it was in Munich because of the large ethnic German population, due to strong immigration since the revolutions of 1848. In the Westliche Post, he saw an ad for a mule hostler at Benton Barracks. The next day he walked four miles and got the job, but held it for only two days. He quit due to the poor food and the whims of the mules, stating "The man who has not cared for sixteen mules does not know what work and troubles are."[10] Pulitzer had difficulty holding jobs; he was too scrawny for heavy labor and likely too proud and temperamental to take orders.

He worked as a waiter at Tony Faust, a famous restaurant on Fifth Street. It was frequented by members of the St. Louis Philosophical Society, including Thomas Davidson, the German Henry C. Brockmeyer, a nephew of Otto von Bismarck; and William Torrey Harris. Pulitzer studied Brockmeyer, who was famous for translating Hegel, and he "would hang on Brockmeyer's thunderous words, even as he served them pretzels and beer."[11] He was fired after a tray slipped from his hand and a patron was soaked in beer.

Pulitizer spent his free time at the St. Louis Mercantile Library on the corner of Fifth and Locust, studying English and reading voraciously. He made a lifelong friend there in the librarian Udo Brachvogel. He often played in the library's chess room, where Carl Schurz noticed his aggressive style. Pulitzer greatly admired the German-born Schurz, an emblem of the success attainable by a foreign-born citizen through his own energies and skills. In 1868, Pulitzer was admitted to the bar, but his broken English and odd appearance kept clients away. He struggled with the execution of minor papers and the collecting of debts. That year, when the Westliche Post needed a reporter, he was offered the job.[12]

Soon after, he and several dozen men each paid a fast-talking promoter five dollars, after being promised good-paying jobs on a Louisiana sugar plantation. They boarded a steamboat, which took them downriver 30 miles south of the city, where the crew forced them off. When the boat churned away, the men concluded the promised plantation jobs had been a ruse. They walked back to the city, where Pulitzer wrote an account of the fraud and was pleased when it was accepted by the Westliche Post, edited by Dr. Emil Preetorius and Carl Schurz, evidently his first published news story.[13]

On March 6, 1867, Pulitzer renounced his allegiance to the Kingdom of Hungary and became a naturalized American citizen.[13]

A chromolithograph of Pulitzer superimposed on a composite of his newspapers.

In the Westliche Post building, Pulitzer made the acquaintance of attorneys William Patrick and Charles Phillip Johnson and surgeon Joseph Nash McDowell. Patrick and Johnson referred to Pulitzer as "Shakespeare" because of his extraordinary profile. They helped him secure a job with the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad.[14] His work was to record the railroad land deeds in the twelve counties in southwest Missouri where the railroad planned to build a line.[15] When he was done, the lawyers gave him desk space and allowed him to study law in their library to prepare for the bar.

Pulitzer displayed a flair for reporting. He would work 16 hours a day – from 10 am to 2 am. He was nicknamed "Joey the German" or "Joey the Jew". He joined the Philosophical Society and frequented a German bookstore where many intellectuals hung out. Among his new group of friends were Joseph Keppler and Thomas Davidson.[16]

On his thirtieth birthday, Pulitzer's home at the Southern Hotel burned to the ground, likely destroying most of his personal belongings and papers.[28]

On December 9, 1878, Pulitzer bought the moribund St. Louis Dispatch and merged it with John Dillon's St. Louis Post, forming the St. Louis Post and Dispatch (soon renamed the Post-Dispatch) on December 12. With his own paper, Pulitzer developed his role as a champion of the common man, featuring exposés and a hard-hitting populist approach. The paper was considered a leader in the field of sensational journalism.[20][29]

The circulation of the Post-Dispatch steadily rose during Pulitzer's early tenure (aided by the collapse of the city's other daily English-language paper, the Star). At the time of merger, the Post and Dispatch had a combined circulation of under 4,000.[29] By the end of 1879, circulation was up to 4,984 and Pulitzer doubled the size of the paper to eight pages.[30] By the end of 1880, circulation was up to 8,740.[31] Circulation rose dramatically to 12,000 by March 1881 and to 22,300 by September 1882. Pulitzer bought two new presses and increased staff pay to the highest in the city, though he also crushed an attempt to unionize.[32]

In April 1883, the Pulitzer family traveled to New York, ostensibly to launch a European vacation, but actually so that Joseph could make an offer to Jay Gould for ownership of the morning New York World. Gould had acquired the newspaper as a throw-in in one of his railroad deals, and it had been losing about $40,000 a year, possibly due to the stigma Gould's ownership brought. In return for the paper, Gould asked Pulitzer for a sum well over a half-million dollars, as well as the retention of the World's current staff and building.[39] After some frustration at this request and disagreement with his brother Albert, Pulitzer was prepared to give up. At the urging of his wife Kate, however, he returned to negotiations with Gould. They agreed to a sale of $346,000 with Pulitzer retaining full freedom in the selection of staff.[40]

The Pulitzers moved to New York full time, leasing a home in Gramercy Park. The World immediately gained 6,000 readers in its first two weeks under Pulitzer and had more than doubled its circulation to 39,000 within three months.

As he had in St. Louis, Pulitzer emphasized sensational stories: human-interest, crime, disasters, and scandal. Under Pulitzer's leadership, circulation grew from 15,000 to 600,000, making the World the largest newspaper in the country.[41] Pulitzer emphasized broad appeal through short, provocative headlines and sentences; the World's self-described style was "brief, breezy and briggity."[42] His World featured illustrations, advertising, and a culture of consumption for working men.[43] Crusades for reform and entertainment news were two main staples for the World.

In 1887, he recruited the famous investigative journalist Nellie Bly.

Pulitzer was also involved with the construction of the New York World Building, designed by George B. Post and completed in 1890. Pulitzer dictated several aspects of the design, including the building's triple-height main entrance arch, dome, and rounded corner at Park Row and Frankfort Street.[44][45]

In 1895, the World introduced the immensely popular The Yellow Kid comic by Richard F. Outcault, one of the first strips to be featured in the newly launched Sunday color supplement shortly after.

After the World exposed an illegal payment of $40,000,000 by the United States to the French Panama Canal Company in 1909, Pulitzer was indicted for libeling Theodore Roosevelt and J. P. Morgan. The courts dismissed the indictments.[46]

Rivalry with William Randolph Hearst

A June 29, 1898 editorial cartoon by Leon Barritt depicts Pulitzer and Hearst each pushing for war with Spain.

In 1895, William Randolph Hearst purchased the rival New York Journal, which at one time had been owned by Pulitzer's brother, Albert. Hearst had once been a great admirer of Pulitzer's World.[56] The two embarked on a circulation war. This competition with Hearst, particularly the coverage before and during the Spanish–American War, linked Pulitzer's name with yellow journalism.[57]

Pulitzer and Hearst were also the cause of the newsboys' strike of 1899, a youth-led campaign to force change in the way that Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst's newspapers compensated their child newspaper hawkers.

Pulitzer's health problems (blindness, depression, and acute noise sensitivity)[62] caused a rapid deterioration, and he had to withdraw from the daily management of the newspaper. He continued to manage the paper from his New York mansion, his winter retreat at the Jekyll Island Club on Jekyll Island, Georgia, and his summer vacation retreat in Bar Harbor, Maine.

After he hired Frank I. Cobb (1869–1923) as the editor of the New York World, the younger man resisted Pulitzer's attempts to "run the office" from his home. Time after time, they battled each other, often with heated language.

When Pulitzer's son took over administrative responsibility in 1907, Pulitzer wrote a carefully worded resignation. It was printed in every New York paper except the World. Pulitzer was insulted but slowly began to respect Cobb's editorials and independent spirit. Their exchanges, commentaries, and messages increased. The good rapport between the two was based largely on Cobb's flexibility. In May 1908, Cobb and Pulitzer met to outline plans for a consistent editorial policy but it wavered on occasion.

Pulitzer's demands for editorials on contemporary breaking news led to overwork by Cobb. Pulitzer sent him on a six-week tour of Europe to restore his spirit. Cobb continued the editorial policies he had shared with Pulitzer until Cobb died of cancer in 1923.[63]

In a company meeting, Professor Thomas Davidson said, "I cannot understand why it is, Mr. Pulitzer, that you always speak so kindly of reporters and so severely of all editors." "Well", Pulitzer replied, "I suppose it is because every reporter is a hope, and every editor is a disappointment."[64]

This phrase became an epigram of journalism.[64]

In 1878 at the age of 31, Pulitzer married Katherine "Kate" Davis (1853–1927), a woman of high social standing from Georgetown, District of Columbia. She was five years younger than Pulitzer, from an Episcopalian family, and rumored to be a distant relative of Jefferson Davis. They married in an Episcopal ceremony at the Church of the Epiphany in Washington, D.C.[65] He did not reveal his Jewish heritage to Katherine or her family until after their marriage, to her shock.[66]

Of seven children, five lived to adulthood: Ralph, Joseph Jr. (father of Joseph Pulitzer III), Constance Helen (1888–1938), who married William Gray Elmslie, D.D.[67] Edith (1886–1975), who married William Scoville Moore,[68] and Herbert, eventually his brother Ralph's partner at the Post. On December 31, 1897, their older daughter, Lucille Irma Pulitzer, died at the age of 17 from typhoid fever. Their other daughter, Katherine Ethel Pulitzer, died of pneumonia in May 1884. An Irish immigrant named Mary Boyle largely raised the children while their parents were busy.

Pulitzer's grandson, Herbert Pulitzer, Jr. was married to the American fashion designer and socialite Lilly Pulitzer.[69]

Following a fire at his former residence, Pulitzer commissioned Stanford White to design a limestone-clad Venetian palazzo at 11 East 73rd Street on the Upper East Side; it was completed in 1903.[70] Pulitzer's thoughtful seated portrait by John Singer Sargent is at the Columbia School of Journalism that he founded.

The family continued to be involved in the operation of the St. Louis paper for several generations until April 1995, when Joseph Pulitzer IV resigned from the paper in a management dispute.[71] His daughter (Joseph J. Pulitzer's great-great-granddaughter) Elkhanah Pulitzer is an opera director.

For six months during 1908, Pulitzer was attended to by his personal physician C. Louis Leipoldt aboard his yacht Liberty.[72] While traveling to his winter home at the Jekyll Island Club on Jekyll Island, Georgia in 1911, Pulitzer had his yacht stop in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. On October 29, 1911, Pulitzer listened to his German secretary read aloud about King Louis XI of France. As the secretary neared the end, Pulitzer said in German: "Leise, ganz leise" (English: "Softly, quite softly"), and died.[73] His body was returned to New York for services and interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx.

• Place des États-Unis
• Pulitzer Arts Foundation
• List of Jewish members of the United States Congress

Sources

• Brian, Denis. Pulitzer: A Life (2001) online edition
• Ireland, Alleyne. Joseph Pulitzer: Reminiscences of a Secretary (1914)
• Morris, James McGrath. Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print and Power (2010), a scholarly biography. ISBN 978-0060798697
• Morris, James McGrath. "The Political Education of Joseph Pulitzer," Missouri Historical Review, Jan 2010, Vol. 104 Issue 2, pp. 78–94
• United States Congress. "Joseph Pulitzer (id: P000568)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved on 2008-11-06
• Pfaff, Daniel (1991). Joseph Pulitzer II and The Post-Dispatch: A Newspaperman's Life. Penn State University Press. ISBN 978-0271007489.</ref>
• Rammelkamp, Julian S. Pulitzer's Post-Dispatch 1878–1883 (1967)
• W.A. Swanberg. Pulitzer (1967) Pulitzer, popular

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Joseph Pulitzer.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Joseph Pulitzer

• Original New York World articles at Nellie Bly Online
• NY Times – Harper's Weekly political cartoon American Editors. II. – Joseph Pulitzer; includes in-depth biographical information
• Lambiek Comiclopedia article.
• Texts on Wikisource:
  • "Pulitzer, Joseph". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1900.
  • "Pulitzer, Joseph". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
  • "Pulitzer, Joseph" . The Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1918.
  • "Pulitzer, Joseph". Encyclopedia Americana. 1920.
  • "Pulitzer, Joseph". Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921.
  • "Pulitzer, Joseph". Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed.). 1922.