The New International Encyclopædia/Pulitzer, Joseph

PU'LITZER, Joseph (1847—). An American journalist, born at Budapest, Hungary. He was privately educated, and emigrated to the United States in 1864. He served in 1864-65 in a Federal cavalry regiment, after hardships arrived in Saint Louis, was a reporter there for Carl Schurz's Westliche Post, a Republican journal, and later became managing editor of the paper, in which he also obtained a proprietary interest. In addition to his activity in journalism, he studied law, and, having been admitted to practice in Missouri, became somewhat prominent in local politics, and in 1869 was elected to the State Legislature. He was also a member of the Missouri constitutional convention of 1874. In 1876-77 he was Washington correspondent of the New York Sun, and in 1878 purchased the Saint Louis Dispatch, which, combined by him with the Evening Post (Saint Louis) as the Post-Dispatch, became an important journal of the West. The New York World, which he acquired in 1883 and with which his name became chiefly identified, attained under his direction a very large circulation. In 1884 he was elected to the Federal House of Representatives as a Democrat from the Ninth New York District, but not very long afterwards resigned to give his undivided attention to business affairs. He made several donations to educational and charitable causes, and in 1903 provided an endowment fund for a school of journalism at Columbia University.