History of American newsboys who made their living walking the streets selling newspapers.

From Benjamin Franklin to Ragged Dick to Jack Kelly, hero of the Disney musical Newsies, newsboys have long intrigued Americans as symbols of struggle and achievement. But what do we really know about the children who hawked and delivered newspapers in American cities and towns? Who were they? What was their life like? And how important was their work to the development of a free press, the survival of poor families, and the shaping of their own attitudes, values and beliefs? Crying the News: A History of America's Newsboys offers an epic retelling of the American experience from the perspective of its most unshushable creation. It is the first book to place newsboys at the center of American history, analyzing their inseparable role as economic actors and cultural symbols in the creation of print capitalism, popular democracy, and national character. DiGirolamo's sweeping narrative traces the shifting fortunes of these "little merchants" over a century of war and peace, prosperity and depression, exploitation and reform, chronicling their exploits in every region of the country, as well as on the railroads that linked them. While the book focuses mainly on boys in the trade, it also examines the experience of girls and grown-ups, the elderly and disabled, blacks and whites, immigrants and natives. Based on a wealth of primary sources, Crying the News uncovers the existence of scores of newsboy strikes and protests. The book reveals the central role of newsboys in the development of corporate welfare schemes, scientific management practices, and employee liability laws. It argues that the newspaper industry exerted a formative yet overlooked influence on working-class youth that is essential to our understanding of American childhood, labor, journalism, and capitalism.

CHAPTER I NAT ON THE FARM CHAPTER II A QUARREL IN THE BARNYARD CHAPTER III NAT LEAVES THE FARM CHAPTER IV ABNER BALBERRY'S DISCOVERY CHAPTER V THE SALE OF A COW CHAPTER VI NAT ON LAKE ERIE CHAPTER VII AN ADVENTURE AT NIAGARA FALLS CHAPTER VIII A FRESH START IN LIFE CHAPTER IX FIRST DAYS IN NEW YORK CHAPTER X OUT OF WORK ONCE MORE CHAPTER XI WHAT A HUNDRED DOLLARS DID CHAPTER XII ON THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE CHAPTER XIII A SWINDLE EXPOSED CHAPTER XIV NAT OBTAINS ANOTHER SITUATION CHAPTER XV ABNER AND THE WIDOW GUFF CHAPTER XVI ABNER VISITS NEW YORK CHAPTER XVII A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY CHAPTER XVIII NAT MEETS HIS UNCLE CHAPTER XIX NAT BECOMES A PRIVATE CLERK CHAPTER XX RUFUS CAMERON'S BOLD MOVE CHAPTER XXI A MISSING DOCUMENT OF VALUE CHAPTER XXII AT THE ELEVATED STATION CHAPTER XXIII TOM NOLAN'S CONFESSION CHAPTER XXIV THE PAPERS IN THE TRUNK CHAPTER XXV BACK TO THE CITY CHAPTER XXVI FRED GIVES UP CITY LIFE CHAPTER XXVII A SCENE AT THE HOTEL CHAPTER XXVIII A SUDDEN PROPOSAL CHAPTER XXIX THE CAPTURE OF NICK SMITHERS CHAPTER XXX NAT COMES INTO HIS OWN

"Nat, where have you been?" "Been fishing," answered the boy addressed, a sturdy youth of sixteen, with clear blue eyes and sandy hair. "Fishin'? And who said you could go fishin'?" demanded Abner Balberry, in his high, nervous voice. "Nobody said I could go," answered the boy, firmly. "But I thought you'd all like to have some fish for supper, so I went." "Humph!"

Cub Reporters considers the intersections between children's literature and journalism in the United States during the period between the Civil War and World War I. American children's literature of this time, including works from such writers as L. Frank Baum, Horatio Alger Jr., and Richard Harding Davis, as well as unique journalistic examples including the children's page of the Chicago Defender, subverts the idea of news. In these works, journalism is not a reporting of fact, but a reporting of artifice, or human-made apparatus—artistic, technological, psychological, cultural, or otherwise. Using a methodology that combines approaches from literary analysis, historicism, cultural studies, media studies, and childhood studies, Paige Gray shows how the cub reporters of children's literature report the truth of artifice and relish it. They signal an embrace of artifice as a means to access individual agency, and in doing so, both child and adult readers are encouraged to deconstruct and create the world anew.