joseph pulitzer

Joseph Pulitzer was born in Makó, Hungary, as the eldest son of Hungarian Jews. His father, Philip, was a prosperous grain merchant, who died when Joseph was eleven. A few years later his mother married Max Blau, a businessman. His German mother was a devout Roman Catholic. His younger brother, Albert, was trained for the priesthood but never attained it. Pulitzer was also of Hebrew blood because of his mother. Joseph grew up and was educated in private schools and by tutor in Budapest. At the age of seventeen, the 6'2" youth wanted to become a soldier and tried to enlist in the Austrian Army, Napoleon's Foreign Legion for duty in Mexico, and the British Army for service in India. They refused him because he had weak eyesight and had delicate health. These things plagued him for the rest of his life. But in Hamburg, Germany, he encountered a bounty recruiter for the U.S. Union Army and contracted to enlist as a substitute for a draftee, a procedure permitted under the Civil Wa...