Newsboys' strike of 1899
The newsboys' strike of 1899 was a U.S. youth-led campaign to facilitate change in the way that Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst's newspapers compensated their force of newsboys or newspaper hawkers. The strikers demonstrated across New York City for several days, effectively stopping circulation of the two papers, along with the news distribution for many New England cities. The strike lasted two weeks, causing Pulitzer's New York World to decrease its circulation from 360,000 papers sold per day to 125,000.[1] Although the price of papers was not lowered, the strike was successful in forcing the World and Journal to offer full buybacks to their sellers, thus increasing the amount of money that newsboys received for their work. This event inspired the 1992 movie musical, Newsies, which was adapted for Broadway on March 29, 2012.
Legacy[edit]
The newsboys' strike of 1899 has been credited with inspiring later strikes, including the Butte, Montana newsboys' strike of 1914,[41] and a 1920s strike in Louisville, Kentucky.[42]
Some decades later, the introduction of urban child-welfare practices led to improvements in the newsboys' quality of life.
Cultural representations[edit]
The newsboys were fictionalized in 1942 by DC Comics as the Newsboy Legion, first appearing in issue number 7 of Star Spangled Comics and continuing therein, through issue 64, as well as in various forms, including the modern-day comics.
The events of the 1899 strike later inspired the 1992 Disney film Newsies, including a character named Kid Blink (who wears an eye patch), but in this version of the story, the leader of the strike was named Jack Kelly. A musical theatre adaptation of the film, also called Newsies, debuted in 2011 and played on Broadway from 2012 to 2014, and on tour from 2014 to 2016. A live filmed version of the stage production with cast members from both the Broadway and Tour productions was digitally released on May 23, 2017, on Netflix and later switched to Disney+. In November 2022, a production of Newsies opened Off West End in London for a limited run.[43]
The newsboy strike is described in detail in the 2003 non-fiction book Kids on Strike!