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…