HISTORY: Preserved

We've made it to the end of the Newsboys' Strike 120th Anniversary! I hope you've enjoyed getting to know a bit more about the true story behind the newsboys' strike. While we can't rely 100% on the newspapers' reports on the matter, it does help to cross-check them to confirm facts. It's amazing to see how widely the strike spread, not just in New York City and its surrounding burroughs, but throughout the country as well - inspiring other kids to stand up for their rights and hoping to make a change. There's a lot we can learn from them. And I think it's good to know that while they didn't "win" per se, they seemed to have arrived at a satisfactory compromise which is good to know.

Besides the awesome picture of me above playing marbles in my "newsies" outfit (haha!), I've got a fun little bonus in honor of today's finale. I found some old Newsies fanfiction of mine and posted it up on my old profile over at fanfic…

Delivering Newspapers, New York City 1899
Photographed May 1, 1899.
American Mutoscope and Biograph Company
Camera: G.W. "Billy" Bitzer, Arthur Marvin
credit


No doubt, you're here to discover whether Disney told us the truth in the movie - did the newsies win their strike? Did they band together with the messenger boys and the bootblacks and all the other child laborers in New York City and make Pulitzer and Hearst back down?

Well, I guess it depends on how you measure success. Did they achieve their original goal of making the big guys reduce the price of their papers to pre-war prices?

Let's take a look at the final two articles for Wednesday, August 2, 1899 to find out. That's right. Just two. Articles about the strike at this point were hard to find!


NEW YORK SUN



NEW YORK TRIBUNE

Well, here is the final word in this New York Tribune article: "The reason for the change, the boys say, is that they are permitted to make full returns."
There you have it f…

I love this photograph of these newsboys. They look cold and yet so many of them are still smiling for the photographer, Lewis Hine. You might have noticed that most of my images have come from Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Commons contains a wealth of photographs in the public domain that tell so many countless stories. If you go to commons.wikimedia.org and search for "newsboys" you will find dozens upon dozens of amazing photographs! I've had a lot of fun browsing through some of them and at the same time felt very somber seeing the conditions that those children worked in. Americans owe a lot to the tireless work of Mr. Hine and the willing young subjects of his camera.

Today's articles for Tuesday, August 1, 1899 are very few. It's not looking good for the newsboys in NYC if the headlines are anything to go by. There's still some successful happenings for newsboys living in other places though.


NEW YORK SUN




NEW YORK TIMES




NEW YORK TRIBUNE



Tomorrow, it all e…

As you know, I did hours and hours of research scanning through hundreds of pages of newspapers on microfilm to dig up these articles about the Newsboys' Strike of 1899. Being the budding historian that I was, I didn't stop there. I wanted to know who these boys were, what their lives were like, and to get a better glimpse into what it took as a kid selling papers on the street.

So, I found books and reports written about the newsboys health, education, labor, and housing. The above photo is something I just found online today, which is amazing, because I have a copy of the book Sketch of the Formation of the Newsboys' Lodging-House by C. L. Brace published in 1867. I am missing a few pages by accident, but I wonder if the photo above is in any way related to the book! The book is full of wonderful detail and is a fascinating look into the newsboys' lives. As the book might be out in the public domain now, I'll have to see about getting a copy of it available onli…

I'm so excited I found more pictures of myself dressed like a newsy! I'm glad to see that I'm smiling. So many of my pictures from this time I wanted to be serious. Teenagers. Ha! 😏

Speaking of pictures... today is very exciting. It's another article with more pictures of the newsboys! Now, I don't know if the pictures are more cartoon than real likenesses, but I like to think that the drawings bear a slight resemblance to the real boys made famous by the strike. In any case, these pictures are amazing. And once again, I'm pretty sure you can't find these anywhere else online, because of the gap in available online issues of the New York Daily Herald! So, feast your eyes, my friends and I'll see you tomorrow!

Here are the articles for Sunday, July 30, 1899.

**Please respect all my hard work and investment. Please do not copy, store, or share these photos elsewhere without permission and proper linking back to this blog as well as correctly referencing…

The year of 1999 was an exciting one for Newsies and newsboy strike fans. It was the 100th anniversary! The fans united and started planning a big get together in New York City to celebrate. They made a t-shirt (I bought one!) and there were even rumors of inviting one of the stars from the movie, Max Casella. It was a big deal, and I was dying to go. But Indiana was just a bit too far away, and we could afford to drive all the way out there just to go to a history geek/movie fan party.

So, I missed it, and it was a huge bummer. I didn't know at the time that I would be going to New York the following year, just missing the 100th anniversary. But, what I did get to experience was something much deeper than a one-time party - I got to know the real newsies through newspaper articles, I met one of the cast from Newsies (Dee Caspary who played Snitch), and I had ample opportunities wandering the same streets they did, visiting the statue of Horace Greeley that's a big part of a …

Ever since I was a girl, I was fascinated by 19th and early 20th century child labor in America. The book I've had since I was a teenager called Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Laboris a well-loved copy. Lewis Hine's work is compelling, brutally honest, and captured the children of that time in a sweet yet horrible way. His work fascinated me and it's what led me to hold a life-long interest in the Industrial Revolution and how its shaped people's lives. (You can learn more about Lewis Hine here.)

However romantic Disney has portrayed the newsboys' story, and no matter how cool Spot Conlan looks with his trademark cane (he was my fave!), the hard truth is that the newsboy life was hard, uncertain, and came with all the difficulties that a job outside in the elements entails. Many of the kids were in business for themselves while others helped out family. It's astounding in this day and age that kids so young were shouldering the responsi…