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Newsboys form union, strike citywide after paper raises wholesale price
Summary
Street vendors known as "newsies" organized on the spot, voted to strike when the price per hundred papers rose from 50¢ to 60¢, occupied an old press to print their leaflet and forced a negotiated rollback after publishers and Governor Theodore Roosevelt intervened.
Jack Kelly and several hundred street vendors — self-identified "newsies" or newsboys — organized a union, declared a strike and staged a citywide work stoppage after newspaper wholesalers raised the price newsboys pay per hundred papers from 50¢ to 60¢.
The action began after a public announcement that the wholesale price for papers would increase by 10¢ per hundred. The vendors responded by forming an association on the spot, electing officers (Jack Kelly was nominated president), voting to withhold work and spreading word across boroughs including Brooklyn, Harlem, Queens and the Bronx. "We're on strike," Jack Kelly told assembled newsboys as the membership voted to act.
Within hours the group seized an unused printing press in the cellar of a theater to publish a leaflet they called the "Children's Crusade," telling other underage vendors to stay home and join a larger, citywide stoppage. The organizers allocated distribution zones — Brooklyn, Harlem, Queens, the East Side and other areas —…
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