Joseph Pulitzer

Joseph Pulitzer

Joseph Pulitzer (1847–1911) was born in Budapest, the son of a grain dealer. He immigrated to the United States in 1864 and settled in St. Louis. He worked as a mule tender, waiter, and hack driver before studying English at the Mercantile Library. He began his journalism career as a writer for a German language daily.

In 1872, Pulitzer purchased the St. Louis Post, and six years later the St. Louis Dispatch, beginning his crusades against government corruption, gambling, and tax fraud. By 1883, Pulitzer was wealthy enough to purchase the New York World for $346,000. Previously a losing operation, the World was turned into a journal that concentrated on human-interest stories, scandal, and sensational matter. He also began a campaign to change many of the financial loopholes enjoyed by the privileged class. Pulitzer hired two of the most famous newspaper personalities of his time. Richard Outcault was a pioneer of political cartoons, and Nellie Bly was a pioneer in investigative journalism.

In the early 1880s, Pulitzer began visiting Bar Harbor and rented the Cleftstone from Charles How, a successful real estate developer from Boston. How had purchased large tracts of land and was building summer cottages for the rich. Pulitzer was a demanding man and, dissatisfied with the dining room table, had one built to his specifications. It is a one-piece tiger oak table designed to seat six. The table remains in the dining room because it is too big to move.

By 1890, Joseph Pulitzer was completely blind as a result of two detached retinas caused by stress. This condition, as well as sensitivity to sound, required that he buy his own cottage, Chatwold, to which he added the Tower of Silence that housed his private sleeping quarters and Bar Harbor’s first heated swimming pool. Pulitzer continued to run the World from Bar Harbor, his yacht Liberty, or his southern estate, but never returned to the World office building in New York.

Pulitzer died in 1911. In his will, he established the Columbia School of Journalism and a fund that established annual prizes for literature, drama, music, and journalism named the Pulitzer Prize. In 1922, the prize was extended to include cartoonists.