PersonJewish Eligibility — Verified by JWR

Herbert Bayard Swope

American Jewish journalist and editor who won the inaugural 1917 Pulitzer Prize for Reporting for his wartime series “Inside the German Empire.”

New York, United States

Herbert Bayard Swope speaking at Columbia University Journalism School, 7 December 1954

University Archives, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University LibrariesColumbia University Archives, Office of Public Affairs Photograph Collection, Series II: Negatives, Box II.12; cropped from the Columbia-supplied 7 December 1954 contact sheet.

Biography

Herbert Bayard Swope was born in St. Louis on 5 January 1882 to German-Jewish parents Isaac and Ida Swope. He became a reporter and editor associated most closely with the New York World. His 1916 reporting from Germany, later collected as “Inside the German Empire,” won the first Pulitzer Prize for Reporting in 1917. He later served as executive editor of the World and became one of the best-known American newspaper figures of his era. He died in New York on 20 June 1958.

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Records held by Herbert Bayard Swope

JWR VerifiedFounding Record

Awards · Pulitzer PrizeFirst

First Jewish Person to Win a Pulitzer Prize

Record holder

Herbert Bayard Swope

Record value

4 June 1917

In 1916, New York World correspondent Herbert Bayard Swope returned to wartime Germany and reported a long series examining life and military conditions inside the German Empire. The Pulitzer Prizes awarded him the 1917 prize in Reporting for “Inside the German Empire,” making his work part of the very first Pulitzer Prize cycle and the first Pulitzer Prize for reporting. Because the Pulitzer Prizes began in 1917 and Swope was a personally named winner in that inaugural slate, he is the earliest verified Jewish individual to win a Pulitzer Prize under the JWR definition. His Jewish eligibility is independently documented through his German-Jewish parents, Isaac and Ida Swope, and the family's Reform Jewish identity.

Country represented: United States
Achievement location: United States
Achievement date: 4 June 1917

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