Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [275]
He found work: Kargau, German Element, 124–125; Snider, St. Louis Movement, 145.
For the first: MoRe, 9/5/1865, 3; DCS-JP, 52; ChTr, 5/24/1883, 10; MoRe, 1/1/1877, 6. A “Joseph P. Pullitzer” was listed in the 1866 city directory as a coachman; the family that employed Pulitzer as a coachman may have been the Weinhagens.
In 1866 Pulitzer: WRR, 6.
Despite Pulitzer’s inability: Udo Brachvogel, “Episoden aus Joseph Pulitzers St. Louis Jahren,” Rundschau zweier welten, January 1912. As with his experiences in the Civil War, Pulitzer almost never talked about his first years in St. Louis. When he did tell tales, he would invariably cut them short and complain that the listener had unfairly countenanced the reminiscence. “As soon as a man gets in the habit of talking about his past adventures,” Pulitzer said on one such occasion, “he might as well make up his mind that he is growing old and that his intellect is giving way.” But in a rare moment late in life, Pulitzer did recount several stories from this time. While cruising the Mediterranean in 1911, Pulitzer shared some with Alleyne Ireland, who was one of the last in a long string of personal secretaries and who would later serve as his companion. “He was generally more willing to talk when we took our meals at the large round table on deck, for he loved the sea breeze and was soothed by it,” Ireland recalled (AI, 168, 174–175).
One time Pulitzer: AI, 171–172.
The various jobs: DCS-JP, 53. The services provided by the organization were sorely needed. Six thousand German immigrants arrived in St. Louis in 1866 (Kargau, German Element, 206–208).
In Pulitzer’s case: Adalbert Strauss to Joseph Pulitzer Jr., 6/11/1913, JPII-LC. Strauss was not alone in being “introduced” to Elize. Charles P. Johnson, who met Pulitzer around this time, had a similar experience. “One of the most attractive traits of his character to me was his admiration and abiding love for his mother,” said Johnson. “She was his guiding star” (“Remarks of Gov. Chas. P. Johnson, Birthday Anniversary Dinner,” April 10, 1907, PDA).
Pulitzer paid the $2: Pulitzer’s entry is written in his own hand in the July 18, 1866, membership ledger. He listed his occupation as clerk at “Theo Strauss & Co, 19th & Franklin.” The occupations of other members were determined by examining the pages adjoining Pulitzer’s entry. Record Group 12—membership, Mercantile Library Archives, St. Louis, MO; Annual Report of the St. Louis Mercantile Library Association, 1866, 12–13; Taylor and Crooks, Sketch Book of Saint Louis, 66–67.
He approached the: JP to RP, 3/23/1903 JP-CU; Annual Report of the St. Louis Mercantile Library Association, 1866, 14; Clarence Miller, “Exit Smiling, Part II,” Missouri Historical Society Bulletin, Vol. 6, No. 2 (January 1950), 188.
His hours in: Leidecker, Yankee Teacher, 317–320; Snider, The St. Louis Movement in Philosophy, 7, 139. The men who formed the society also ended up as characters in a novel, The Rebel’s Daughter, by John Gabriel Woerner. Professor Altrue is a representation of Harris, Dr. Taylor is Dr. Schneider (a play on the German word Schneider, “tailor”), and Brockmeyer appears as Rauhenfels. See Woerner, Woerner, 103.
When he wasn’t studying: Clarence Miller, “Exit Smiling, Part II,” Missouri Historical Society Bulletin, Vol. VI, 2, Jan. 1950, 188; E. F. Osborn to JPII, 6/15/1913, PD. Chess was a popular game in Hungary. In fact, victories by a Hungarian in a correspondence match between Pest and Paris in the 1840s had created a popular opening strategy called the “Hungarian defense.”
Pulitzer quit his post: William Kelsoe to Carlos Seitz, undated but part of series of correspondence in 1921–1922, PDA; A. S. Walsh to JPII, June 1913, PDA. According to A. S. Walsh, the teenager who worked in the drugstore, “Joe used to often come into the store to have a chat and compare notes and during the epidemic his visits seems to be more frequent than usual” (A. S. Walsh to JP II, June 1913. PD). In late summer