Extra, Extra!: New York Newsboys' Strike, 1899

Extra, extra! Read all about it! New York’s newsboys are going on strike!

For over 50 years, newsboys and girls have become a crucial part of New York’s street culture. Standing at every intersection, train station, and storefront in the city, they can be heard hawking headlines from sunrise to sunset, only stopping once they’ve earned the day’s dollar. Though necessary, their jobs are far from glamorous. Hours are abysmal, pay is even worse, and almost all newsies are only children, most working full-time long before their 18th birthday. Despite their youth, they can always be found doing the hard labor of salesmanship for the grown men that run New York’s most profitable newspapers. Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, two frontrunners of the industry, built their companies on the backs of New York’s poorest children without remorse– and it is these very businessmen that New York’s newsies must negotiate a strike against.

With the weather reaching thirty-year highs and the city bursting at the seams with two new boroughs, the summer of 1899 will challenge the working kids of New York in ways they’ve never experienced, and they’ll be tasked with finding ways to challenge the city right back.