Newspaper editor and publisher, Author. He was educated in St. Louis, Missouri and when he spent four years traveling abroad by private tutors,. After his travels he attended St. Mark’s School at Southboro, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard with an A.B. He was the eldest son of Joseph Pulitzer who established a newspaper empire and expected his sons to continue his work. In 1900, he began his newspaper career with the New York World. From 1906 to 1908 he was Vice-President of the Press Publishing Company, which published the World and Evening World. From 1911 to 1930 he was President until his retirement due to ill health. His brother, Herbert, took over the presidency of the Press Publishing Company and sold the World to Scripps-Howard where it was merged to become the New York World Telegram. During World War I he sent dispatches from Europe describing the fighting in the trenches, an airplane flight to the French front lines and German economic conditions. After retiring, he went go abroad for his health. He traveled to Africa to collect birds, insects and reptiles for the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh and was accompanied by Rudyard Boulton, the museum’s curator of ornithology. He was familiar with Africa as one of his hobbies was big game hunting. During the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, he was appointed the Deputy Administrator in charge of newspaper and allied codes under the National Recovery Administration (NRA), but resigned after the Newspaper Guild of New York protested his appointment, sending letters to the President and NRA Chief, General Hugh S. Johnson. He was the author of two books, New York Society on Parade published in 1909 and Over the Front in an Aeroplane published in 1915. In July 1917, he was commissioned as a Lieutenant Commander, junior grade in the United States Naval Reserve and was in command of a patrol cruiser. In February 1918, he was transferred to New York to work for Naval Intelligence. He was a Democrat and belonged to the Harvard and Deepdale, and Authors and Players Clubs. On October 14, 1905, he married Frederica Vanderbilt Webb of New York. They were the parents of two sons, Ralph Jr. and Seward Webb Pulitzer. After their divorce he married Margaret K. Leech, a novelist and biographer in 1928. They were the parents of one daughter, Susan Pulitzer. On June 15, 1939, he died of complications from an abdominal operation performed on May 1 at the Harkness Pavilion of Presbyterian Hospital. Funeral services were held at St. Thomas Episcopal Church.
Sources: Fourth Estate, August 31, 1918, Richmond Times Dispatch, Thursday, June 15, 1939; The Times-Picayune, Thursday, June 15, 1939 and Springfield Republican, Thursday, June 22, 1939.