Joseph Pulitzer
Hungarian-American newspaper publisher and politician (1847-1911)
Joseph Pulitzer ( PULL-it-sər; born Pulitzer József, Hungarian: [ˈpulit͡sɛr ˈjoːʒɛf]; April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911) was a Hungarian-American politician and a newspaper publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York World. He became a leading national figure in the U.S. Democratic Party and served one term representing New York's 9th congressional district.
In the 1890s, the fierce competition between his World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal led both to develop the techniques of yellow journalism, which won over readers with sensationalism, sex, crime, and graphic horrors. Circulation reached a million copies a day, and the journalism opened the way to mass-circulation newspapers that depended on advertising revenue, rather than on cover price or on political-party subsidies. Such newspapers attracted readers by using multiple forms of news, gossip, entertainment, and advertising.
Pulitzer's name is best known for the Pulitzer Prizes established in 1917 pursuant to an endowment to Columbia University specified in his will. The university awards prizes annually to recognize and reward excellence in American journalism, photography, literature, history, poetry, music, and drama. Pulitzer also funded the Columbia School of Journalism with his philanthropic bequest; it opened in 1912.
Early life
Born in 1847 as Pulitzer József (name order by Hungarian custom) in Makó, about 200 kilometers south-east of Budapest, he was the son of Elize (Berger) and Fülöp Pulitzer (born Politzer).
The public source identifies “Joseph Pulitzer” as hungarian-American newspaper publisher and politician (1847-1911). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Joseph, Pulitzer and Hungarian-American.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q173417. VIAF identifies the subject as 6887149296167880670000. The Library of Congress control number is n50020256. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1847, 1911, 1917 and 1912.
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This entry incorporates text from “Joseph Pulitzer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.