American · 1880–1950
Ernest Poole won the first Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1918 with "His Family," a novel about a widowed New York businessman watching his three daughters embrace different paths through Progressive Era America. The American journalist and novelist began his career documenting tenement life and labor conditions before turning to fiction. His reportage from revolutionary Russia and his social novels captured a nation in transformation, though his reputation has faded alongside the causes he championed.