Newsboys Strike of 1899
Encyclopedia
Youth activism
Youth activism is when the youth voice is engaged in community organizing for social change. Around the world, young people are engaged in activism as planners, researchers, teachers, evaluators, social workers, decision-makers, advocates and leading actors in the environmental movement, social...
to force change in the way that Joseph Pulitzer
Joseph Pulitzer
Joseph Pulitzer April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911), born Politzer József, was a Hungarian-American newspaper publisher of the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the New York World. Pulitzer introduced the techniques of "new journalism" to the newspapers he acquired in the 1880s and became a leading...
and William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
's newspapers compensated their child labor
Child labor
Child labour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries...
force. The strike
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
lasted two weeks, causing Pulitzer's New York World
New York World
The New York World was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers...
to reduce its circulation from 360,000 to 125,000. The strike was successful in increasing the amount of money that newsboys received for their work. The history of the newsboys strike of 1899 is told in David Nasaw
David Nasaw
David Nasaw is an author and a professor of American History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he is also chairman of the Center for the Humanities. He received his PhD from Columbia University...
's book Children of the City: At Work and at Play (Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1985; Oxford University Press, 1986).
Background
Newspaper boys, also called 'newsboys' or 'newsies', were the main distributors of newspapers to the general public from the mid-19th to the early 20th century in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Standing on street corners, walking through neighborhoods and hawking their papers throughout every city, they first appeared with the rise of mass circulation newspapers. Newsboys tended to be among the poorest classes of society, often seen sleeping on the streets.
The newsboys were not employees of the newspapers but rather purchased the papers from the publishers and sold them as independent agents. Not allowed to return unsold papers, the newsboys typically earned around 30 cents a day and often worked until very late at night. Cries of "Extra, extra!" were often heard into the morning hours as newsboys attempted to hawk every last paper.
Newsboys were not often well received. In 1875 a popular writer of the period wrote, "There are 10,000 children living on the streets of New York....The newsboys constitute an important division of this army of homeless children. You see them everywhere.... They rend the air and deafen you with their shrill cries. They surround you on the sidewalk and almost force you to buy their papers. They are ragged and dirty. Some have no coats, no shoes, and no hat." However, the common ill-treatment of the newsboys was not a major concern of society.
The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
previously reported on newsboy strikes several years before the events of 1899, including those in 1884, 1886, 1887, and 1889.
Causes of the strike
In 1898, with the Spanish-American WarSpanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
increasing newspaper sales, several publishers raised the cost of a newsboy bundle of 100 newspapers from 50¢ to 60¢, a price increase that at the time was offset by the increased sales. After the war, many papers reduced the cost back to previous levels, with the notable exceptions of the New York World
New York World
The New York World was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers...
and the New York Morning Journal.
The strike
In July 1899, a large number of New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
newsboys refused to distribute the papers of Joseph Pulitzer
Joseph Pulitzer
Joseph Pulitzer April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911), born Politzer József, was a Hungarian-American newspaper publisher of the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the New York World. Pulitzer introduced the techniques of "new journalism" to the newspapers he acquired in the 1880s and became a leading...
, publisher of the World, and William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
, publisher of the Journal. The strikers demonstrated across the Brooklyn Bridge
Brooklyn Bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River...
for several days, effectively bringing traffic to a standstill, along with the news distribution for most New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
cities. Several rallies drew more than 5,000 newsboys, complete with charismatic speeches by strike leader Kid Blink.
So named because he was blind in one eye, Kid Blink was a popular subject among competing newspapers such as the New York Tribune
New York Tribune
The New York Tribune was an American newspaper, first established by Horace Greeley in 1841, which was long considered one of the leading newspapers in the United States...
, who often patronizingly quoted Blink with his dialect intact, attributing to him such sayings as "Me men is nobul." (My men are noble) Blink and his strikers were the subject of violence, as well. Hearst and Pulitzer hired men to break up rallies and protect the newspaper deliveries still underway. During one rally Blink told strikers, "Friens and feller workers. Dis is a time which tries de hearts of men. Dis is de time when we'se got to stick together like glue.... We know wot we wants and we'll git it even if we is blind."(Friends and fellow workers, this is the time that tries/challenges the hearts of men; this is the time when we've got to stick together like glue.... we know what we want and we'll get it even if we are blind).
Although the World and the Journal did not lower their 60¢-a-bundle price, they did agree to buy back all unsold papers, and the union disbanded.
Legacy
The Newsboys Strike of 1899 has been credited with inspiring later strikes, including the Butte, MontanaButte, Montana
Butte is a city in Montana and the county seat of Silver Bow County, United States. In 1977, the city and county governments consolidated to form the sole entity of Butte-Silver Bow. As of the 2010 census, Butte's population was 34,200...
Newsboys Strike of 1914, and a 1920s strike in Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
.
Some decades later, the introduction of urban child-welfare practices led to improvements in the newsboys' quality of life.
Cultural representations
The Newsboys were fictionalized in 1942 by DC ComicsDC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
as the Newsboy Legion
Newsboy Legion
The Newsboy Legion are fictional characters, a kid gang in the DC Comics Universe. Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, they appeared in their own self-titled feature which ran from Star Spangled Comics #7 to Star Spangled Comics #64 .-Pre-Crisis version:A group of orphans, living on the streets...
, continuing in various forms to modern-day comics.
The events of the 1899 strike later inspired a Disney film Newsies
Newsies
Newsies is a 1992 Disney musical film starring Christian Bale, David Moscow, and Bill Pullman. Robert Duvall and Ann-Margret also appeared in supporting roles. The movie is widely claimed to have gained a cult following after its initial failure at the box office...
, including a character named Kid Blink (who wears an eye patch). A stage version of the movie made its theatrical debut at the Paper Mill Playhouse
Paper Mill Playhouse
Paper Mill Playhouse is a regional theatre with approximately 1200 seats, located in Millburn, New Jersey, less than 25 miles from Manhattan. Due to its location, it can draw from the pool of actors who live in New York City. Its location, as well as its focus on producing large-scale shows, makes...
on September 25th, 2011.
The Newsboy strike is described in detail in the 2003 non-fiction book, Kids on Strike!
Kids on Strike!
Kids on Strike! is a 2003 non-fiction book written by award winning author Susan Campbell Bartoletti. It is set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when child labor was prominent in the United States. It consists of eight chapters, which all focus on strikes led by kids, or affecting kids...