New York City has always been a hub for all classes of people, a collection of rich and poor who live together in a delicate balance. At the turn of the 20^th century, that balance was upset for the newsboys, who at the time were essential to newspaper distribution in the afternoons and evenings. Most of the newsboys came from poor immigrant families as New York, considered the gateway from the rest of the world to America, was the first stop or eventual home to many immigrants. What being a newsboy meant was purchasing a bundle of newspapers directly from the manufacturer for 50¢ for one hundred papers and selling each paper for 1¢ each, working as long as you had to to sell every last paper because whatever paper you didn't sell was money literally thrown away (Newsboys). Since you couldn’t sell the same paper the next day, newsboys had to use whatever means necessary, whether that be tricks, lies, bribery, or often times working late into the night, and since the total profit for each paper was half a cent, the average newsboy was making a profit of 26¢ per day (Davis).

In 1899, after a rise in newspaper profits, several companies raised the price of their bundles from 50¢ to 60¢ which was a manageable problem for newsboys until the paper sales fell but the cost of the bundles remained the same. The two companies who kept their prices the same were the two biggest and most successful- the World and the Journal (Hullett). The newsboys, some being as young as eight years old, wondered how it was fair that 52-year-old white millionaires like Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, who ran the World and the Journal respectively, could force them to give up more of their wages when, by todays calculations, both men were worth 30 million apiece, while those working on the ground were making barely enough to buy more work for the next day (Davis).

After their demands to return bundle prices to their original state were not met, a group of men and young boys from Long Island City, New York turned over a distribution wagon for the New York Journal and stood on top of it to declare a World and Journal city wide strike. It didn’t stop there though as this metaphorical war cry was taken up by Manhattan and Brooklyn the next day and spread like wildfire to the other neighboring cities soon after. This caused a subsequent extreme drop in sales almost overnight, as the people of either the same class as the newboys or those who simpathized with them rallied together with them, the result being the companies went from selling 360,000 papers a day to 125,000 (Newsboys). Pulitzer and Hearst knew the companies would not survive long after the sudden nosedive tanked sales which is why on August 2, 1899, they came to an agreement: they would not change the price back but whatever papers the newsboys didn't sell would be bought back by the manufacturer. This meant a drastic positive change in the work conditions for the newsboys, who now wouldn't have to use such drastic measures such as lies and long hours to make sure they sold every paper (Hullett).

This strike sparked many discussions about class separation and issues alike in the years to come. It inspired several more strikes in other states across America and was even cited as an example of why the Child Labor Laws should be enacted 20 years later. The horrible unfairness of how the young immigrant or orphaned newsboys were treated by people of Pulitzer and Hearst’s stations opened the eyes of everyone watching (Newsboys). This had such an impact on the world that in 2017 Broadway turned it into a hit musical that has since become one of the most popular and well known plays today. This in tern has kept the conversation about class seperation, fair wages, and equal rights going.

Davis, Ben. “How Much Was Joseph Pulitzer Worth.” MVOrganizing, 7 Mar. 2021, https://www.mvorganizing.org/how-much-was-joseph-pulitzer-worth/.

Hullett, Rachel. City Hall Park 1899, https://cityhallpark1899.com/.

Newsboys' Strike of 1899 Explained, Everything.Explained.Today , https://everything.explained.today/Newsboys%27_strike_of_1899/.