Tuesday, November 15, 2011

The Newsies! The Non-Hollywood Version

So maybe you already know about the Newsies. You're thinking, "I thought this blog was supposed to be about unsung heroes and other historical people who are often overlooked?" Well, perhaps your knowledge of the Newsies comes from Christian "Batman" Bales' song-and-dance-filled movie version of the Strike of 1899.  If so, read on.  Hollywood took some liberties with the story. Haven't you seen Harry Potter? Hollywood changes the story all the time!

Hollywood got it right when they showed the Newsies buying their papers from the distributor before heading out to the streets to sell them.  Where they went wrong was when they showed the happy bunk house where the boys slept each night.  In reality, many of the newsies had to sleep out on the streets they worked on.  In fact, in 1872, a man named James McCabe wrote:

"There are 10,000 children living on the streets of New York....The newsboys constitute an important division of this army of homeless children. You see them everywhere....   They rend the air and deafen you with their shrill cries. They surround you on the sidewalk and almost force you to buy their papers. They are ragged and dirty. Some have no coats, no shoes and no hat."


Before the major strike of 1899, the newsboys started other smaller strikes in 1884, 1886, and 1887.

In 1898, The Spanish-American War began, and newspaper prices increased across the nation.  Newsies who were used to buying 100 papers for 50 cents now had to pay 60 cents.  For boys who were mostly homeless this was a large increase.  Their average daily income was around 30 cents.  In addition, the papers they didn't sell by the end of the day were a loss.  Say you bought 100 papers for 50 cents.  That comes to two papers for a penny.  If you only sold 50 papers, you lost 25 cents that day.  Being a newsie was not easy!


When the war ended, many papers lowered their prices.  In New York City however, William Randolph Hurst and Joseph Pulitzer left their prices high.  The newsies saw this as unfair, and in 1899 a large group of them organized a strike against the two newspapers.  

Unlike the movie, the newsies organized themselves on the Brooklyn Bridge.  They stayed there for days, bringing traffic to a halt.  Their numbers reached as many as 5,000 at one point.  They were led by a young boy named Kid Blink, who was so named because he was blind in one eye.  (Kid Blink is in the movie version...he wears an eye patch over one eye)



Probably the part of the story that is least like the Hollywood version is the end of the strike.  Unlike the action-packed rally and subsequent arrest of some of the newsies, the real strike ended when Pulitzer and Hurst agreed to buy back the papers the boys didn't sell at the end of the day.  They did NOT lower their price.  

Though the story of the real newsies was greatly exaggerated in the movie, you can't downplay the awesome-ness that is the big musical number, "Seize the Day": Catch a glimpse of Kid Blink in the front row at the beginning!



The newsies' strike in NYC also marked the beginning of the child-labor movement, which is hinted at in the end of the movie version.

Also, do you like comics? Check out The Newsboy Legion, based on The original newsies.


P.S. New York City tends to be the place to have strikes or protests.  Right now it's playing host to the Occupy Wall Street movement.  They aren't occupying the Brooklyn Bridge like the newsies did, but they have taken over several parks.  Check out their website.  What do you think?

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