On October 29, 1911, Joseph Pulitzer died on his yacht in the harbour of Charleston in South Carolina, at the age of 64, and the newspaper publisher who had done more than any other to shape the modern American press was buried in New York. He had been ill for years and was almost blind, and he had run his papers from a darkened room and from abroad, and he was still working on the plans for the school of journalism that his will provided for.
He was born in Hungary in 1847 and went to the United States as a young man, and he served in the cavalry in the civil war and then worked as a reporter in St Louis, and he bought a German language paper there and made it a success and then a larger English daily, the Post-Dispatch. In 1883 he bought the New York World, and he turned it into the most read paper in the city, with a large circulation, and he used it for campaigns against corruption and for a wide range of popular material. The paper grew.
His methods were much discussed. The World and the papers of William Randolph Hearst competed hard for readers, and their coverage of a revolt in Cuba in the 1890s pressed for American intervention and gave rise to the term yellow journalism, and the two men were criticised for the part they played. On the other hand he insisted on accuracy and on the separation of news from comment, and he gave money to found a school of journalism at Columbia University, the first of its kind, and he supported the statue of liberty fund when the money for the pedestal had run out.
His will left two million dollars to Columbia, which founded the school in 1912, and provided for prizes to be given each year for work in journalism, letters and, later, music and other fields, and the first prizes were awarded in 1917 and have been given since. The prize endures. The prizes are administered by the university and are among the best known awards in the field.