William J. Dorvillier

Who was William J. Dorvillier?

William J. Dorvillier, born in North Adams, Massachusetts in 1908, was the 1961 recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing. The founder, publisher and editor of then 18-month-old and now defunct The San Juan Star, he wrote a series of twenty editorials criticizing the Catholic Church's interference with the 1960 general elections in Puerto Rico, where 90% of the population was Roman Catholic.

Dorvillier's editorials produced a response from Puerto Rico's Roman Catholic Diocesan Bishop James Edward MacManus, which The San Juan Star published in its entirety.

Until it ceased publishing in the summer of 2008, the Star was the only Pulitzer Prize-winning publication in Puerto Rico and while every one of its Spanish-language competitors in 1961 were long gone, it continued publishing for 47 years.

Dorvillier died on May 5, 1993 in Concord, New Hampshire.