Pulitzer Prize, founded under the will of Joseph Pulitzer (1847–1911), awarded annually (unless the judges decide to withhold it) for the best play, preferably one dealing with American life, produced in New York during the preceding 12 months. It has been awarded as follows:

1916–17: No award1917–18: Why Marry? ( Jesse Lynch Williams)1918–19: No award1919–20: Beyond the Horizon ( Eugene O'Neill)1920–1: Miss Lulu Bett ( Zona Gale)1921–2: Anna Christie ( Eugene O'Neill)1922–3: Icebound ( Owen Davis)1923–4: Hell-Bent fer Heaven ( Hatcher Hughes)1924–5: They Knew What They Wanted ( Sidney Howard)1925–6: Craig's Wife ( George Kelly)1926–7: In Abraham's Bosom ( Paul Green)1927–8: Strange Interlude ( Eugene O'Neill)1928–9: Street Scene ( Elmer Rice)1929–30: The Green Pastures ( Marc Connelly)1930–1: Alison's House ( Susan Glaspell)1931–2: Of Thee I Sing ( George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind, Ira Gershwin and George Gershwin)1932–3: Both Your Houses ( Maxwell Anderson)1933–4: Men in White ( Sidney Kingsley)1934–5: The Old Maid ( Zoë Akins)1935–6: Idiot's Delight ( Robert E. Sherwood)1936–7: You Can't Take It With You ( Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman)1937–8: Our Town ( Thornton Wilder)1938–9: Abe Lincoln in Illinois ( Robert E. Sherwood)1939–40: The Time of Your Life ( William Saroyan)1940–1: There Shall Be No Night ( Robert E. Sherwood)1941–2: No award1942–3: The Skin of Our Teeth ( Thornton Wilder)1943–4: No award1944–5: Harvey ( Mary Chase)1945–6: State of the Union ( Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse)1946–7: No award1947–8: A Streetcar Named Desire ( Tennessee Williams)1948–9: Death of a Salesman ( Arthur Miller)1949–50: South Pacific ( Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, and Joshua Logan)1950–1: No award1951–2: The Shrike ( Joseph Kramm)1952–3: Picnic ( William Inge)1953–4: The Teahouse of the August Moon ( John Patrick)1954–5: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ( Tennessee Williams)1955–6: The Diary of Anne Frank ( Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett)1956–7: Long Day's Journey Into Night ( Eugene O'Neill)1957–8: Look Homeward, Angel ( Ketti Frings)1958–9: J.B. ( Archibald MacLeish)1959–60: Fiorello! ( Jerome Weidman, George Abbott, Sheldon Harnick, and Jerry Bock)1960–1: All the Way Home ( Tad Mosel)1961–2: How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying ( Abe Burrows, Willie Gilbert, Jack Weinstock, and Frank Loesser)1962–3: No award1963–4: No award1964–5: The Subject Was Roses ( Frank D. Gilroy)1965–6: No award1966–7: A Delicate Balance ( Edward Albee)1967–8: No award1968–9: The Great White Hope ( Howard Sackler)1969–70: No Place To Be Somebody (Charles Gordone)1970–1: The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds ( Paul Zindel)1971–2: No award1972–3: That Championship Season ( Jason Miller)1973–4: No award1974–5: Seascape ( Edward Albee)1975–6: A Chorus Line ( Michael Bennett, James Kirkwood, Nicholas Dante, Marvin Hamlisch, and Edward Kleban)1976–7: The Shadow Box ( Michael Cristofer)1977–8: The Gin Game ( D. L. Coburn)1978–9: Buried Child ( Sam Shepard)1979–80: Talley's Folly ( Lanford Wilson)1980–1: Crimes of the Heart ( Beth Henley)1981–2: A Soldier's Play ( Charles Fuller)1982–3: 'night, Mother ( Marsha Norman)1983–4: Glengarry Glen Ross ( David Mamet)1984–5: Sunday in the Park With George ( James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim)1985–6: No award1986–7: Fences ( August Wilson)1987–8: Driving Miss Daisy ( Alfred Uhry)1988–9: The Heidi Chronicles ( Wendy Wasserstein)1989–90: The Piano Lesson ( August Wilson)

Pulitzer Prizes. First awarded by Columbia University in 1917, the Pulitzer Prizes in journalism and the arts were established by the newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer. To the original categories of fiction, drama, history, biography, meritorious public service, editorial writing, and reporting were later added poetry, music, general nonfiction, commentary, criticism, photography (spot news and feature), and editorial cartooning; reporting was separated into local (general and specialized investigative), national, and international. The initial terms of the arts awards, requiring wholesome manners and moral uplift, were soon liberalized. A sizable number of women have been honorees in letters—though fewer in journalism. By the late twentieth century, the awards honored authors who were racially and ethnically diverse, and dramatists treating gay themes. Biographies about presidents and literary figures have dominated the prize as have histories of westward expansion, the Civil War, and, eventually, the civil rights movement. Journalistic articles against the Ku Klux Klan and political corruption; defenses of civil liberties and freedom of the press; accounts of school desegregation, race riots, and environmental pollution; and coverage of human‐rights violations, famine, and refugees abroad have all been recognized.

Beginning in 1975, after the New York Times had won a Pulitzer Prize for publishing the Pentagon Papers about the United States' involvement in Southeast Asia as had the Washington Post for coverage of the Watergate break‐in, the trustees of Columbia University withdrew from ratifying the awards, leaving sole authority to the Pulitzer Prize Advisory Board. Two spot‐news photographs from the early 1970s, of an antiwar protester killed by a National Guardsman at Kent State University and of a screaming South Vietnamese girl running naked after being napalmed by U.S. bombers captured the conscience of the nation.
See also Bill of Rights; Kent State and Jackson State; Vietnam War.

Bibliography

John Hohenberg , The Pulitzer Prizes: A History of the Awards in Books, Drama, Music, and Journalism, Based on the Private Files over Six Decades, 1974.
Sheryle Leekley and John Leekley, eds., Moments: The Pulitzer Prize Photographs, 1978.
John Hohenberg, ed., The Pulitzer Prize Story II: Award‐Winning News Stories, Columns, Editorials, Cartoons, and News Pictures, 1959–1980, 1980.
Hall Buell , Moments: The Pulitzer Prize‐Winning Photographs, A Visual Chronicle of Our Time, 1999.

Thomas P. Adler

Pulitzer Prizes annual awards for achievements in American journalism, letters, and music. The prizes are paid from the income of a fund left by Joseph Pulitzer to the trustees of Columbia Univ. They have been awarded each May since 1917 on the recommendation of an advisory board comprising journalists, the president of the university, with the dean of the graduate school of journalism as secretary. Fourteen awards are given in journalism—$5,000 each for general news reporting, for investigative reporting, for national reporting, for international correspondence, for editorial writing, for editorial cartooning, and for spot news photography, feature photography, commentary, criticism, feature writing, explanatory journalism, specialized reporting (sports, business, science, education, or religion), and a gold medal for distinguished and meritorious public service in journalism. Special citations may also be presented for journalistic excellence and initiative in other categories. The prizes in letters, of $5,000 each, are for fiction, nonfiction, drama, history, biography, and poetry; works with American themes are preferred. The $5,000 musical composition award was added in 1943. Of four traveling scholarships (of $5,000 each), three are to graduates of the Columbia school of journalism and one is for a journalism student for criticism. Pulitzer directed that the winners "study social, political, and moral conditions of the people and the character and principles of the foreign press."

Bibliography: See studies by W. J. Stuckey (1966) and J. Hohenberg (1997).

Pulitzer Prize. Prizes in Amer. journalism, letters, and mus. awarded since 1943 under will of the publisher Joseph Pulitzer (1847–1911). Administered by Columbia Univ., NY. Mus. prize (for comp.) incl. award of $500, and earlier a travelling scholarship of $1,500 was given to a student to enable him or her to study in Europe. Since 1970 mus. critics have been eligible for award for criticism.

Pulitzer Prize Annual US awards presented for outstanding achievement in journalism, letters and music. The cost is met by the income from a trust fund left by Joseph Pulitzer to the trustees of Columbia University. The first prize was awarded in 1917. There are prizes for fiction, drama, US history, biography, poetry and musical composition.

Pulitzer Prize an award for an achievement in American journalism, literature, or music, of which there are thirteen made each year. The Pulitzer Prizes were established by provisions in the will of the Hungarian-born American newspaper proprietor and editor Joseph Pulitzer (1847–1911).

Pu·litz·er Prize • n. an award for an achievement in American journalism, literature, or music. There are thirteen made each year.

PULITZER PRIZES

PULITZER PRIZES. SeePrizes and Awards: Pulitzer Prizes.