Newsgirls of the strike !
I know I am new here, I know I haven't fully delved headfirst into the fandom but I think it is so incredibly important that we don't erase the girls of the Newsies strike. Time and time again I have seen it where everybody focuses on the boys, erases the girls (looking at yo Katherine and Sarah) and when fics are written or people create their headcanons and ships its only focused on the boys however the girls have always been there.
[TW : Sexism , exploitation , corruption ]
"It was a much-repeated line in newspapers across the US: While newsboys could make money selling papers by keeping their eyes peeled, their female counterparts could only sell papers by keeping their eyes appealing. This oftrepeated adage is an example of the gendered experiences of Progressive Era newsgirls" ( Linford, 2022).
While the girls were highly outnumbered by their male peers there were still countless girls who became renowned for their newspaper selling, like Winnie Horn who, in a profile in the New York Sun, was known nationwide as the "Queen of the Newsies" (Linford, 2022).
These Newsgirls occupied an extraordinarily complicated position. Selling newspapers had been an opportunity for working-class girls to earn money in a time where the economy had very few chances for women of any age to earn their own wages even though female newsies had existed in America since before the American Civil War (Linford, 2022). Reformers and newspapers alike at the time had portrayed the female newspaper sellers as particularly vulnerable both to s.exual e.xploitation and m.oral corruption. The scrutiny placed on them of course was something that their male coworkers would never come close to experiencing, or at least not to the same degree (DiGirolamo, 2019). Even with this scrutiny the girls continued to participate, develop strategies, protect themselves, and assert their independence.
When it comes to the 1899 strike although they were a minority within the broader movement of working children, newsgirls still participated in both protests and strikes and sometimes even directly confronted any who dared to attempt interference with their work (Liebel, 2024). The activism shown by the girls reflected the broad pattern in which working children would act as political and economic agents rather than passive bystanders. One of the most visible newswomen associated with the 1899 strike was Annie, who participated in the strikers' meetings and publicly supported their cause.
The rare occasion that newsgirls were portrayed they were also often seen as white girls however there was a higher percentage of Jewish, Russian, Eastern European, and Black newgirls than Western European (Liebel, 2024). The participation of children of color is particularly important because historical portrayals of the 1899 strike can unintentionally erase them. The surviving sources do not always provide sufficient information to determine the racial or ethnic identity of individual strikers. Depections of Black newsboys (and newsgirls) were rare however they were often pictured cavorting with white newsboys, and several artists even drew or painted images of the Black Newsgirls. The erasure of the Newsies of Color was a telling societal gendered and racial standard. When White newsgirls were "worthy of discussion" any non-white Newsgirl was not. The limited mentions of Black and Asian newsgirls and then the complete lack of them in later media only strengthened a lack of representation and the newsies falling victim to time and history.
The involvement of newsgirls and newsies of different racial and ethnic backgrounds also reveals the limitations of viewing the strike exclusively through the lens of popular culture. Modern representations tend to simplify the historical newsboys into a relatively homogeneous group. The actual newspaper-selling population was more complicated. Gender, race, ethnicity, immigration status, and family circumstances all influenced how individual children experienced work. Recognizing this diversity does not diminish the importance of the famous male leaders of the strike. Instead, it places their accomplishments within the larger community of working children who made collective action possible.
sources :
DiGirolamo, V. (2019). Crying the news: A history of America's newsboys. Oxford University Press.
Lorimer Linford, Autumn. “‘The Newsgirl Question’: Competing Frames of Progressive Era Girl Newsies.” American Journalism, vol. 39, no. 3, 3 July 2022, pp. 315–339, 10.1080/08821127.2022.2098205.
