First Pulitzer Prizes Awarded

Date: June 4, 1917 • Location: Washington, United States

The first Pulitzer Prizes are awarded: Laura E. Richards, Maude H. Elliott, and Florence Hall receive the first Pulitzer for biography (for Julia Ward Howe). Jean Jules Jusserand receives the first Pulitzer for history for his work With Americans of Past and Present Days. Herbert B. Swope receives the first Pulitzer for journalism for his work for the New York World.

The Pulitzer Prizes are 23 annual American awards for achievements in "journalism, arts and letters", administered by Columbia University in New York City. They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian-American immigrant and newspaper publisher whose bequest also founded and endowed the Columbia School of Journalism. First awarded in June 1917, they remain among the most prestigious national honors for American journalism.