History of American Journalism History of American Journalism
Joseph Pulitzer in History of American Journalism  Joseph
Pulitzer (1847-1911) was the owner and editor of the New York
World and the benefactor of the Pulitzer Prize. Born in Hungary,
he gained passage to America in 1864 by enlisting with a Union
Army recruiter in Hamburg, Germany. After the Civil War, he
worked on a German-language paper in St. Louis, became a United
States citizen, passed the Missouri state bar, and won a seat in
the Missouri state legislature. In 1878, he purchased the St.
Louis Dispatch for $2500; by 1883, he was netting more than
$80,000 a year from the paper.  In 1883, Pulitzer acquired the
New York World from Jay Gould. Formerly a religious penny paper,
the World under Pulitzer grew into one of the city's most
profitable secular penny papers. In 1896, he engaged in a fierce
circulation battle with William Randolph Hearst's New York
Journal. The Spanish-American War provided Pulitzer and Hearst
with the material for sensati