Photo of Joseph Pulitzer from The Missouri Historical Society (c. 1880)

Joseph Pulitzer was the founder and publisher of the New York Evening World printing company. Born in Mako, Hungary, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1864 and served in the Union Army during the American Civil War After the war, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri and gained a profit from his share in the newspaper, the Westliche Post. The profit he made helped him to purchase the St. Louis Dispatch and St. Louis Post and merge them into one newspaper, known as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In 1883, Pulitzer moved to New York City and purchased the New York World from financial speculator, Jay Gould. The success of the New York Evening World came out of Pulitzer’s rivalry with William Randolph Hearst (founder of the New York Journal). According to Pulitzer biographers George H. Douglas and Nancy Whitelaw, the success of the New York Evening World came from Pulitzer’s decision to make daily newspaper prices cheap for consumers and focus on lower-class citizens as well as immigrants.

Missouri Historical Society

1880

St. Louis, Missouri