Newsboys' Strike: 120th Anniversary

July 28, 2019

Newsboys' Strike: 120th Anniversary - Day 8

"Waiting for the forwards" (1:15 am)
Lewis Hine, photographer
wikimediacommons

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 Labor is 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 responsibility of supporting themselves or their loved ones. Selling newspapers wasn't the only profession in which kids were employed, of course, as you might have seen in some of the headlines. Today I'm sharing an article that has a snapshot of three different strikes other than the newsies, two of which featured children - bootblacks and the messenger boys.

Those kids had were full of pluck, drive, and were shrewd. But it's really because they had to be.

Here are today's articles from Friday, July 28, 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 where all the articles come from. Without the references, they pretty much become useless.
Thank you!

NEW YORK HERALD