Joseph pulitzer biography new york

From Kirkus Reviews

An occasionally chaotic biography of one of the most influentialand one of the most unpleasantpeople in American journalism. Joseph Pulitzer came to this country as a bounty soldier for the Union army in the Civil War. He scrambled for work at war's end, and after a series of jobs found employment in a German-language paper in St. Louis, where his strong writing and deeply political bent caught the attention of readers. Through his own fanatical work ethic, he was able to buy the St. Louis Dispatch and then engineered a merger to the successful Post-Dispatch. The paper thrived under Pulitzer's hard-edged treatment of corruption, gossip about the rich and famous, and emphasis on vivid, direct prose, as did his New York World in head-to-head competition with Hearst's New York Morning Journal. Whitelaw (Let's Go! Let's Publish, 1998, etc.) makes clear that Pulitzer was controlling of everyone around him, whether family or employee; readers learn of his ill health and unrelieved paranoid nastiness as well as his endowments and awards. The narrative is not always coherent; suddenly, Pulitzer has a brother, also a newspaper publisher in New York, and just as suddenly that brother commits suicide. It is often difficult to determine the setting for Pulitzer's oper

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Joseph Pulitzer

Born: April 10, 1847

Died: October 29, 1911 (age 64)

Missouri Hometown: St. Louis

Region of Missouri: St. Louis

Category: Journalists

Introduction

Joseph Pulitzer suffered from poor health and bad eyesight most of his life, but his natural curiosity and eagerness to learn helped him succeed as a laborer, legislator, and newspaperman. Pulitzer created a journalistic style that is still in use today. Mixing thought-provoking editorials and news with crime and public interest stories, Pulitzer made the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York World profitable papers. He is well known for creating the Pulitzer Prize.

Pulitzer Comes to America

Pulitzer tried to join the military but was rejected by the Austrian army, the French Foreign Legion, and the British army. He was finally recruited in Hamburg, Germany, to fight for the Union in the American Civil War in August 1864. Pulitzer could not speak English when he arrived in Boston Harbor. He made his way to New York City, and enlisted with a mostly German cavalry unit. Pulitzer loved to ride horses even after he lost his sight. His brief military career ended on June 5, 1865, with an honorable discharge.

Pulitzer returned to New York City after the war to fin