While searching the internet for information about Newsboy Caps I came across this great article about the Newsboy profession at www.peachtree-online.com/printer/newsboys.htm.
I hope you’ll find it as interesting as I did:
If you want to buy the latest edition of a newspaper, where do you usually purchase the paper? Do you go to a local bookstore, a nearby gas station, or the neighborhood grocery store? Or do you simply bypass the paper edition and read the day’s news on the Internet? Our access to newspapers is convenient, and with online newspapers, we don’t even have to leave our homes.
A century ago, however, newspaper access was a far different story. The Internet did not exist and in many major cities, many newspaper readers purchased daily editions from newsboys. The newsboy occupation existed from the late 1800s, through the early twentieth century and even into the 1940s (the time period for The Printer). The job of hawking newspapers to passer-bys was not an easy job, and many poor, homeless children competed for the meager money that could be gained from the position.
First, a little background about America during the late 1800s: immigration into the United States was at an all-time high, and poverty was everywhere. Many immigrants traveled to America from countries with horrible living conditions; shelter, food, and clean water were a rarity, and many immigrants became sick during the passage to the United States. In many cases, parents died enroute, leaving their children homeless and without a source of income.
When the immigrants arrived, adults and children alike searched for jobs and living quarters. Around this time, the American newspaper industry began to boom, and newspapers required cheap workers to distribute daily editions. A New York paper, The New York Sun, was the first newspaper to hire newsboys to sells papers on the streets of the busy city. Soon, other papers followed suit and the newsboy career path bloomed.
The life of a newsboy was tough: in many cases, these boys and girls (yes, girls sold papers too!) needed to sell papers in order to buy food and survive. Some newsboys were as young as six years old, while others were teenaged at fourteen or fifteen. Because many of them had to sell papers from the early morning until late evening in order to earn money for food, most newsboys did not attend school. Many were orphans, living on the street, and fellow newsboys formed their families.
Not all newsboys were parentless, though. Some did have families and homes, but the lure of hanging out on busy streets with fellow friends–and the excitement that often accompanied the newsboy profession–drew boys to the work. Sometimes, newsboys came from broken homes and the parents failed to track their children’s whereabouts. Eventually, the newsboy might abandon his family and adopt a new family of fellow newsboys.
A newsboy’s day began very early, usually before sunrise. A New York newsboy made his way to Printing House Square, an area in the city that housed the city’s major newspapers. Printing House Square was two blocks east of the future World Trade Center site, and most newsboys referred to the area as “Newspaper Row.” Newspaper Row served as the newsboy headquarters, where the children gathered to wait for the day’s newspaper bundles.
Within a matter of minutes, newspaper dealers began to distribute “hot off the press” bundles to the waiting newsboy crowd. The children had to pay for the stack of newspapers up front, before they sold any copies, and lost money on any of the papers they did not sell that day. Soon, the newsboys hit the streets, often positioning themselves at busy intersections and well-traveled corners where many pedestrians passed on their way to work. Because they were under pressure to sell as many papers as possible in order to earn money, the newsboys sold very aggressively, forcing the papers in pedestrians’ faces and shouting the day’s headlines to the crowds.
Life as a newsboy was very hard. Imagine living on the streets, working on blazing summer days and freezing winter mornings just to earn money for a meager bit of food. Few had parents, and if a newsboy became ill, he likely did not have enough money to see a doctor, much less buy food.
A kindly New York catholic priest, Father John Drumgoole, witnessed the hard lives of the city’s newsboys and decided to help. Born in 1816 in Ireland, the priest grew up in poverty and understood the challenges faced by the New York newsboys. In 1871, the Church named him Chaplain of a homeless boys shelter called the St. Vincent’s Newsboys’ home. The shelter was an old warehouse situated only a few blocks from Newspaper Row, and Father Drumgoole worked hard to let the newsboys know about the shelter. He posted fliers and searched for the homeless children in dark alleyways and under bridges-area where newsboys often lived when not selling papers.
Accepting only boys, the Father Drumgoole’s shelter offered evening school classes and safe lodging for a small fee, with free dinner on Sundays. Soon the shelter was filled to capacity, and Father Drumgoole purchased land and built a ten-story shelter at the corner of New York’s Great Jones and Lafayette streets. The new shelter housed 500 boys. Next, the priest bought a 600-acre farm on Staten Island. Today, Staten Island is filled with houses, buildings, and people, but the area was farmland in the late 1800s.
Named Mount Loretto, the farm was huge and operated completely by former newsboys. The children plowed fields, grew huge crops, raised chickens, milked cows, cared for horses, and made their own clothes and shoes. Soon, the Mount Loretto farm was the most productive farm on Staten Island. Father Drumgoole died in 1888, but his legacy continued as the shelter and farm continued to operate into the twentieth century. Sold in 1961, the Mount Loretto cowherd represented the last cows in New York City.
Back in 1871, when Father Drumgoole first established his shelter, newsboys lucky enough to secure a spot at the shelter received lodging, food, and education. Unfortunately, the shelter could only house a limited number of children, and hundreds of newsboys continued to live on the streets. By 1899, the situation was dire.
For years, newspaper publishers had steadily raised the price on the newspaper bundles bought by newsboys. In 1898 the United States entered the Spanish-American War. During the months of the war, newspaper readers gobbled up the day’s papers and newspaper publishers raised the price of a newsboy’s daily paper bundle from 50 to sixty cents. By 1899, the War was over and fewer readers bought daily newspapers; however, the price for a newsboy’s daily bundle remained high at the wartime rate of sixty cents.
Here’s the situation: a newsboy bought a bundle of 100 papers for 60 cents. In order to break even, the newsboy had to sell at least 60 papers that day. But during the months after Spanish-American War ended, newspaper readership dropped and newsboys were lucky to sell 30 or 40 papers. Therefore, the child lost 20 or 30 cents that day. If the newsboy were lucky enough to sell the entire 100-paper stack, he only made a profit of 40 cents-which just covered past days when he likely lost money.
Newsboys were losing money hand over fist, and something had to be done. In July 1899, the newsboys decided to strike against The Evening World and The Evening Journal. They aimed to either put the two massive newspapers out of business or strike a deal in which they would not lose so much money. The New York newsboys worked together and held rallies to publicize their cause; rival newspapers covered the rallies and supported the newsboys’ cause.
In the end, the 1899 newsboy strike lasted little more than a week, but the outcome was successful. The newspaper publishers and newsboys compromised: the 100-paper bundles still sold for 60 cents each, but the newspapers bought back any unsold papers from the newsboys. Soon, other child workers followed the example of the New York newsboys by striking against adult employers. Newsboys in Chicago, Boston, and Pittsburgh held strikes, as did messenger boys in New York and Pittsburgh.
Not all the strikes were as successful as the original New York newsboy strike, but the series of walkouts brought attention to the plight of child laborers in America’s cities. Within a few years, the United States government passed laws that protected child workers and set standards for the treatment of the country’s children.
