by David Nasaw
The children were not fools or dreamers. They knew that the Alger stories were just that, stories. They did not expect to strike it rich. But neither did they expect to live their lives as their parents lived theirs. They would not be trapped in tenement flats or squeezed into the back rooms of heavily mortgaged houses; they would not work all day and then, in the evening, fall asleep exhausted after dinner; they would not allow themselves to be marooned by fear and by debt in slums and ghettos while the life of the city swirled on around them.
The children did not blame their parents for their poverty. They knew how hard their parents worked and how they were exploited on the job. But their own lives on the street offered them a view of a very different world, a world where one could live by one’s wits, where hustle counted, where work was rewarded. The social relations of the marketplace, as the children experienced them, were not particularly onerous or exploitative. Because they didn’t have to support their families—or themselves—the pennies they earned stretched a long, long way to give them a false sense of the value of their labor. They worked hard each afternoon but were, they believed, amply rewarded for that labor. And they were only children. When they grew up, they would work harder, earn more, and with those earnings buy even more fun on the streets of the city.
The Newsies
There were dozens and dozens of ways for enterprising eleven- to fifteen-year-olds to make money in the early twentieth-century cities. Of them all, the most accessible and most fun was selling newspapers.
Newsies were as old and established an aspect of the urban landscape as the “dailies” they hawked in the streets. There was, nonetheless, something quite different about the twentieth-century boys, something that set them off from their nineteenth-century counterparts. Though every bit as streetwise, tough, and cunning as the street urchins immortalized by Horatio Alger, the newsies who peddled their papers in the turn-of-the-century cities were neither orphans nor streets waifs; nor were they the sole support of ailing mothers and infant siblings. They slept at home, not in alleyways or flophouses, and ate at the dinner table, not at free lunch counters in cheap saloons. As the superintendent of a “newsboy’s lodging house” explained to Jacob Riis in 1912, “The newsboy of to-day is another kind of chap, who has a home and folks.” The picturesque little ragamuffins Riis had earlier written about had been replaced by “the commercial little chap who lives at home and sells papers after school-hours.”1
The new generation of newsies was a product of the boom in afternoon circulation that had been building through the 1880s and 1890s but took off during the Spanish-American War. The morning papers that had been the mainstay of the industry had, by the turn of the century, been eclipsed by the late editions. “By 1890, two-thirds of American dailies were published in the afternoon.” By 1900, “evening papers, bought on the way home from work, outnumbered morning papers … about three to one.”2
The new metropolis had spawned the new newspaper. With the expansion of the cities outward into the urban fringes and suburbs came a new population of workers, many of whom could be enticed to buy an afternoon paper to occupy them during the commute home by ferry, streetcar, subway, or train.3 Better illumination on the streets and at home meant that readers had more time to read, advertisers more time to advertise, and publishers a new market of “homebound shoppers and workers and downtown evening crowds” to sell their late editions to. Technological advances in news-gathering, printing, and transportation made it possible to put out “late” editions timed to greet these new readers with “new” news and advertisements.4
The newsies were reborn with the expansion of the afternoon editions. Nineteenth-century street urchins had sold the morning editions all day long. Twentieth-century newsies could sell enough papers after school to make up for what they might have lost in the morning. Hawking papers was transformed from a full-time to a part-time job, one that began, most conveniently, at four in the afternoon and extended through the evening rush hours.
Because of the timing of the editions and the hundreds of thousands of customers anxious to get their papers on their way home from work, no newspaper ever had enough newsies. As every circulation manager, city editor, advertising director, and publisher knew, the boys were the last and most vital link in the business chain. Without large numbers out on the streets, crying their wares, advertising their papers, exciting and interesting the public in the latest news and the latest edition, the newspaper business would have been in serious trouble.5
In most cities the circulation managers, their assistants, and routemen welcomed the children at the downtown offices and distribution centers. Those who wanted to work steadily, every day after school and on weekends and holidays, were most welcome. But no one was turned away. Children who only wanted to sell the Sunday papers on Saturday nights or the baseball editions with the latest scores during the warm weather were free to do so. So were those who hawked the news only when they were in dire need of extra money, when they lost other jobs, or when the “news” was so hot and the headlines so bold the papers sold themselves.
In cities with more than one afternoon paper (and before World War I that included most cities),6 the circulation managers fought with one another to build up their stock of boys. The more boys on the street, the more papers would be available to customers. Because the profit margin on every paper was the same, the slightest incentive (negative or positive) could shift vendors from one paper to the next or give them a reason to hawk one more enthusiastically then its competitors. An editorial in Editor and Publisher reminded circulation managers of the dangers of alienating the boys and the benefits of treating them well. “As the newsboys can increase street sales or can, by refusing to handle a paper, cut them down, their good will and support are considered a valuable asset. Boys are humans, like grown-ups, but are much more appreciative and respond quicker to their impulses. Treat them well, that is, entertain them, give them help when they need it, and invite them to Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and they will show their gratitude by selling your papers in preference of all others.”7
Cincinnati, 1908. While Edward Clopper reported that black newsies in Cincinnati had been hired by one newspaper to intimidate and disrupt the activities of the boys who sold for a rival paper, it appears from this photograph that black and white newsies were well integrated, at least in the ranks of the Cincinnati Post’s hustlers. The younger barefoot boys in the front of the picture were probably not regular newsies, but youngsters enlisted to pose for Hine’s photograph. (Lewis Hine Collection, NCLC)
Publishers competing for newsies did what they could to curry the boys’ favor. In Philadelphia, the Telegram treated twelve hundred newsies to see “ ‘Lover’s Lane’ at the Park Theater with Miss Millie James in the role of ‘Simplicity Johnson.’ It was the first time a majority of the boys ever had a seat below the top gallery and they appreciated the honor.”8 In Cincinnati, the dailies competed with one another by spending between three and four thousand dollars each for theater parties, baseball leagues, and furnished recreation rooms.9 In Detroit, St. Paul, Baltimore, Ogden (Utah), Spokane, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Austin, Buffalo, Schenectady, Boston, Lawrence and Lynn (Massachusetts), New Orleans, Dayton, and Butte (Montana), publishers provided newsies with furnished clubhouses, tickets to ball games, trips to summer camps and free turkeys on holidays.10
The publishers did it all, not for humanitarian or public relations considerations, but—as the editor of the Grand Rapids Press reminded his fellow editors—for pure “selfish interest.”11
Turkeys and theater tickets were the preferred weapons in the newspapers’ war for the newsies, but there were other strategies as well. Some publishers used intimidation and violence instead of or in combination with their “welfare work.” Circulation managers could, if they chose, hire thugs, arm their delivery men, and make it clear to the boys on the street that anyone not pushing their papers was headed for serious trouble. In Cincinnati, according to Edwa
rd Clopper (a reliable if somewhat histrionic reporter), the agents for two afternoon papers that were engaged in a circulation battle hired bullies “to follow the newsboys who sell the opposition paper and threaten and harass them if they are found trying to sell more than a specified number of copies.” In one instance, Clopper watched as a “small band of young men … instead of entering into fair competition with the boys [hawking the rival newspaper], deliberately got in front of them and harassed them wherever they went, to prevent their making sales.” When questioned by Clopper, the circulation manager admitted hiring five of the “bullies,” but claimed to have done it in self-defense.12
In Cincinnati, at least, the circulation managers used children, not adults, as strong-arms, and the violence was sporadic and short-lived. When Maurice Hexter did his study of newsboy life in Cincinnati in 1917, almost ten years after Clopper’s investigation, he found no hint of such tactics. The circulation managers were instead bidding for the boys’ favor with baseball leagues and theater parties.13 In Chicago, on the other hand, circulation battles were real battles fought by adult hoodlums hired specifically for the occasion. When William Randolph Hearst moved into the Chicago market at the turn of the century, many newsstands and newsies, bowing to pressure from the already established papers, refused to carry his papers. Hearst and the Annenberg brothers, his circulation managers, armed their delivery men and hired adult thugs to force the dealers and newsies to carry the American and the Examiner. Full-scale war broke out when Hearst’s rivals enlisted their own street armies to protect the vendors still loyal to them. The newsboys were caught in the middle—and remained there for years—while the war raged through the streets. Some took advantage of the situation to sign on as “sluggers” with one of the publishers. Others made their peace as best they could and continued to sell their papers on the street.14
Chicago was the only city where it took the publishers so long to discover that street battles were bad for business. Elsewhere, when violence was used, it was used selectively—to get newspapers onto the streets or temporarily scare away the competition. Circulation managers like the Annenbergs, with their arsenal of weapons, were the exception, not the rule. Their counterparts in most cities did not own guns or employ hoodlums. They were new-style managers who saw their mission as boosting circulation through efficiency and better management principles, not violence and intimidation.15
In most cities and towns, the relations between circulation managers and newsies were cool but stable. The boys did not expect theater tickets or armed thugs as inducements to help them do their job. An unwritten contract existed between the boys and the adults who sold them their papers. As long as the adults honored the contract—and did nothing to cut into the boys’ profit margin or disturb their laws of the street—the newsies would cooperate with them. They would push each paper with equal fervor and keep on pushing until the edition was sold out.
The children’s relationship with their adult suppliers and circulation managers was a business one. The street traders were given no special consideration because of age or size. The adults they did business with treated them only as fairly as they had to. It was the children’s informal organization and the conditions of street trading that protected their interests, not adult benevolence.
The street traders who hustled newspapers were blessed by circumstances not of their own making. At this point in the history of the city and of the newspapers, the publishers depended on the children for 50 percent or more of their afternoon sales. The thousands upon thousands of city workers who bought their papers on the way home from work could only have been served by a part-time work force that began work in mid-afternoon. Within a mere twenty years, there would be adults and new distribution companies to get the afternoon dailies to their customers. For the first two decades of the century, however, the newspapers had no choice but to rely on the children.
St. Louis (1910?). A group of newsies, probably in front of the distribution office where they picked up their afternoon editions. (Lewis Hine Collection, NCLC)
City kids who hustled papers inhabited a work world in which the pressure of self-interest was often sufficient to protect each side of the labor contract. The newspapers needed the children as much as the children needed the newspapers. The children’s situation was almost unique. Their first encounter with the workplace was as workers without bosses. As independent contractors they did not have to accept management control of the workplace or work routines. They were free to set their own schedules, establish their own pace, and work when and where they chose. They, in fact, experienced more autonomy at work than in school or at home. In school, they were watched over, tested, and disciplined by teachers. At home, they were subject to the authority of parents, adult relatives, and older siblings. On the street, there were no parents, teachers, bosses, managers, or foremen to tell them what to do or how to do it. The harder and longer they hustled, the more papers they sold. The more time they took for themselves, the less they would have to bring home and to spend. In either case, the choice was theirs. When business was slow because of bad weather or dull headlines, they had no one to blame—not themselves and certainly not the publishers or suppliers. It was bad luck and bad luck alone that came between them and their profits. And today’s bad luck, they knew, could easily turn better tomorrow.
Regrettably, this situation could not—and did not—last forever. The littlest hustlers would grow up and leave the streets behind. They would, however, carry with them the memory of the work world they had encountered as children and the notion that work in America need not be exploitative or unpleasant.
The newsies came from every ethnic group, in numbers roughly proportional to the adult working-class population. In New York City, three quarters of the boys were Russian-Jewish or Italian. In Chicago, over two thirds were “American,” “Negro,” German, or Irish. In Baltimore, more than 40 percent were “American whites.” In Cincinnati, 29 percent were “American, colored.” In Dallas, 80 percent were “American” or northern European.16
What defined the newsie population was not ethnicity as much as class. A July 1917 study of eight hundred and six New York City newsies found that, with the exception of four contractors and builders, five grocers, twenty-three clerks, seven salesmen, and a handful of other white-collar workers, the vast majority of the newsboys’ fathers worked as laborers, tailors, drivers, peddlers, porters, pressers, longshoremen, bootblacks, skilled craftsmen, and factory hands. A 1910 St. Louis study similarly found that only 9.6 percent of newsboys’ fathers were “independent business men” and 3.1 percent “public officials”; all the rest were skilled or unskilled workers.17
The newsies were no exotic breed of city child. The historical record suggests that selling papers on the streets was a common children’s occupation. Hundreds of thousands of boys who grew up in American cities in the first decades of this century sold papers, if not regularly, then when they or their families were most in need of cash. The number of special investigative reports on “newsboy conditions” prepared by child labor reformers testifies to the widespread nature of the practice (see Appendix), as do the many biographies and autobiographies of boys who came of age in the early twentieth-century city. Louis Armstrong, Irving Berlin, Joe E. Brown, George Burns, Ralph Bunche, Eddie Cantor, Frank Capra, Morris Raphael Cohen, Leonard Covello, Jack Dempsey, William O. Douglas, Harry Golden, Joseph Hirschhorn, the Jolson brothers, Mervyn LeRoy, Jerre Mangione, the Marx brothers, David Sarnoff, Spyros Skouras, the Warner brothers, Earl Warren, and Bertram Wolfe, to mention a few, sold papers as boys.
Cincinnati, 1908. (Lewis Hine Collection, NCLC)
Unfortunately for the historian, no accurate quantitative data are available on the number of children who hawked papers on the streets. The census figures are virtually useless, as the Bureau itself admitted in its 1924 report on Children in Gainful Occupations: “The characteristics of the occupations of newsboys are such that accurate enumeration of th
e workers is extremely difficult.”18
The parents and children who were the only potentially reliable sources of information on the subject could not be counted on to tell the truth—and for good reasons. By 1915, some seventeen states, the District of Columbia, and several cities had passed laws restricting children from trading on the streets.19 The children, more often than not, simply ignored the laws. When asked if they worked on the streets, many simply answered in the negative rather than provide some investigator with incriminating information. Their parents were as circumspect in their conversation with census takers and child labor investigators.
The best information we have on the percentage of city boys who sold papers comes from the local studies which used school teachers or licensing bureaus as informants. A 1911 Chicago study reported that 65 percent of fifth-graders (eleven-to-twelve-year-olds) and 35 percent of fourth-graders in a particular school were street traders. Unfortunately for our purposes, the study is suspect. It was undertaken to dramatize the plight of the child laborer for the Chicago Child Welfare Exhibit which probably chose for its survey the one school in Chicago with the greatest number of working children.20
A 1909 Cincinnati study is a bit more reliable. It found that the two thousand boys, aged ten to thirteen, licensed to sell papers in the city constituted 15 percent of their age group.21 Had the study included newsboys who sold without licenses, the 15 percent figure would have climbed somewhat. A second Cincinnati study (1917) attempted to correct for this factor by including the unlicensed newsies but compromised its usefulness by computing the percentage of newsboys in the ten-to-sixteen age group.22 Since most were over eleven and under fifteen, the conclusion that 12 percent of ten- to sixteen-year-olds sold papers is less meaningful than might appear.