The First Pulitzer Prize.
On June 4 1917 the very first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded. The Pulitzer Prize is an award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature, and musical composition in the United States It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of American (publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City. When Pulitzer the Columbia University money in order to set up the world's first school of journalism in 1892 the president Seth Low refused it. A decade later the university agreed to found a school and establish journalism prizes, but Pulitzer's dream was only fulfilled after his death. He left the institution $2,000,000 and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Five years later, Columbia organized the awards of the first Pulitzer Prizes in journalism after Pulitzer's. He specified "four awards in journalism, four in letters and drama, one in education, and four traveling scholarships". In 1917 the winners of the Pulitzer Prize selected by the Columbia University trustees. The winning award was given to French Ambassador Jean Jules Jusserand who wrote the best book about American history Herbert Bayard Swope won a $1000 prize for reporting. Swope produced a series of articles entitled "Inside the German Empire". The articles formed the basis for a book released in 1917 entitled Inside the German Empire: In the Third Year of the War, which he wrote with the American lawyer and diplomat James W. Gerard. In the category biographies and autobiographies, the prize awarded to Laura Richards and Maud Elliott for their work Julia Ward Howe the famous American abolitionist, social activist, poet, and author. The New-York Tribune won the prize the best editorial writing on the first anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania. Over the years, more categories for the Pulitzer Prize were established and others were renamed because the common terminology changed, or the award has become obsolete, such as the prizes for telegraphic reporting, which was based on the old technology of the telegram. Every year, 102 judges are selected, by the Pulitzer Prize Board, to serve on 20 separate juries for the (currently) 21 award categories. However, the board can also decide to issue no award at all in a specific category. At yovisto, you may be interested in a video lecture by James McGrath Morris. His talk revolves around Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print and Power.