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
