Joseph Pulitzer: History, Heritage & the Georgia Connection

JOSEPH PULITZER:

History, Heritage & the Georgia Connection

This year, the Coastal Georgia Historical Society’s annual Chautauqua Lecture Series is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Pulitzer Prize. In the 5-lecture series, the Society will explore connections between the state of Georgia and the coveted prize. Established in 1917 to recognize excellence in American journalism, letters and drama, education, and public service, the Pulitzer Prize has since had its original categories modified and new ones incorporated. By 2009, Pulitzers were awarded in 21 categories, including biography, drama, fiction, history, nonfiction, poetry, and numerous kinds of journalistic writing.

The prize is named for Joseph Pulitzer, the influential owner and publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York World who was known for journalism that exposed corruption in both the public and private sectors. He established the prizes in his will, stipulating that they be administered by the journalism school at Columbia University in New York City and awarded by an advisory board, known today as the Pulitzer Prize Board. A jury of three to seven board members is assigned to each category (depending on how many entries fall within a category). Many of these jurors are former Pulitzer prize winners themselves. Each jury chooses three unranked finalists and presents their choices for final determination by the Pulitzer Prize Board. A banquet is held in New York City every May during which the president of Columbia University presents the awards.

Several Georgia writers have won Pulitzer Prizes for their work in the various categories of letters, drama, and journalism. Other notable writers have won for their works about Georgia and its residents. But Georgia and the Golden Isles have an even stronger connection to Joseph Pulitzer. He was one of the original 53 members of the Jekyll Island Club, with other millionaires J.P. Morgan, William K. Vanderbilt, Marshall Field, and Henry Hyde. In 1903, he built a 26 room winter cottage

on Jekyll Island. In 1911, Pulitzer died on his yacht in Charleston, South Carolina, while en route to the cottage in which he had hoped to spend the remainder of his life.

In 2008, Jekyll Island played host to a four-day celebration held by Georgia Review for recent winners of the Pulitzer Prize in Georgia. Historian Edward J. Larson and journalist Hank Klibanoff were in attendance, and they will also be speakers at this summer’s Chautauqua Lecture Series.

There have been quite a few noteworthy Pulitzer Prize winners from Georgia over the years. Savannah native Conrad Aiken won in 1930 for his poetry. Margaret Mitchell took home the prize for Gone With the Wind in 1937. In 1978, James Alan McPherson, became the first African American to win the prize for fiction with his win for Elbow Room, a collection of short stories. Alice Walker followed in his footsteps, winning a Pulitzer in 1983 for The Color Purple. William S. McFeely took home the prize in 1982 for his extremely popular Grant: A Biography, about the life of Union general Ulysses S. Grant. In 1988, Atlanta native Alfred Uhry won the prize for his play Driving Miss Daisy.

The Pulitzer Prize awards marked several impressive achievements for Georgia newspapers and journalists. The first was in 1926, when the Columbus Enquirer-Sun received the first public service award ever given to (continues)

Jekyll Island, 1911. Cottage of Joseph Pulitzer.

(Courtesy of Vanishing Georgia, Georgia Archives, University System of Georgia)

a Southern newspaper. This was in recognition of the work of the paper’s editors on the resistance to the teaching of evolution in public schools and reporting on the activities of the Klu Klux Klan. In 1939, Thomas L. Stokes, Jr. became the first individual Georgian to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism. The Atlanta native wrote about corruption in Kentucky’s Works Progress Administration. If you remember the photo of Coretta Scott King holding her daughter, Bernice, at the funeral of her husband, slain civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr., that’s what earned Moneta J. Sleet the award for feature photography in 1969. Today, we still laugh, sigh, or groan over the editorial cartoons of Mike Luckovich. He’s won multiple prizes for his work in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.

It’s clear that Georgia’s connection with the Prize is a strong one and is an excellent topic for the Georgia Historical Society to explore through the Chautauqua Lecture Series. In a series of five programs, scholars and authors will focus on winners in different categories and the impact of the Prize.

The series will begin on Thursday, August 11, with a lecture by Robert M. Dowling, author of the acclaimed 2014 biography, Eugene O’Neill: A Life in Four Acts. He will present “Gene and Carlotta: The Origins of Eugene O’Neill’s Sea Island Retreat.” The distinguished American playwright lived on Sea Island from 1932-1936, in a house he built called “Casa Genotta.” He first visited Sea Island while on vacation with his wife in 1931, shortly after Mourning Becomes Electra had opened on Broadway. The 43-year old already had three Pulitzer Prizes for Drama under his belt, and would later earn a fourth, as well as a Nobel Prize for Literature, becoming the only American playwright to win that honor. It was during his time on Sea Island that O’Neill wrote his only comedy, Ah, Wilderness!, a glimpse of small-town family life at the turn of the 20th century. The play opened on Broadway in October 1933 and was followed by a film version in 1935. The O’Neills left Sea Island and relocated on the West Coast the following year.

On Thursday, August 18, Hank Klibanoff, a former Atlanta Journal-Constitution writer, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize winner for History will discuss the importance of the past as it relates to the present and future. His presentation is “The Past is Never Dead: Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases and Why They Matter.” He’ll also address how the award has impacted his career.

On Thursday, August 25, James McGrath Morris, author of Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power, will tell the story of the groundbreaking publisher and part-time Jekyll Island resident. His lecture is entitled “Joseph Pulitzer and the Creation of Modern Mass Media.”

On Thursday, September 1, Edward J. Larson, a UGA historian and the 1998 Pulitzer Prize winner for History will discuss how winning the prize has had an impact in his life. He will also present “The Scopes Trial in History and Folklore.”

The series will wrap up on Thursday, September 15, with a look at other Georgia Pulitzer Prize winning novels, including Caroline Miller’s 1934 fiction award for Lamb in His Bosom, which was thought to pave the way for Margaret Mitchell’s win for Gone With the Wind. GSU Professor Pearl McHaney’s lecture is “Georgia’s Pulitzer Prize Novels: Caroline Miller’s Lamb In His Bosom and Beyond.”

The 2016 Lecture Series is sponsored by Wells Fargo Advisors. Lectures will take place on Thursday evenings, August 11, 18, and 25 and September 1 and 15 at 6:00 p.m. at the A.W. Jones Heritage Center. The cost for the series is $40 for members and $85 for non-members. Registration is required for all attendees. To register, call 912.634.7090, or visit saintsimonslighthouse.org. This promises to be a very interesting summer of discussion!

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