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  • Newspaper Articles
    • The Brooklyn Eagle
      • July 20, 1899: “Newsboys Start A Strike.”
      • July 21, 1899: “The Newsboys’ Strike.”
      • July 24, 1899: “Messenger Boys Join the Army of Strikers.”
      • July 24, 1899: “The Newsboys’ Strike.”
      • July 30, 1899: “The Newsboys’ Strike.”
    • The Evening Post
      • July 20, 1899: “Newsboys on Strike.”
      • July 20, 1899: “Strike Days in Wall Street.”
      • July 21, 1899: “Newsboys Still on Strike.”
      • July 22, 1899: “Newsboys Aggressive.”
      • July 24, 1899: “Newsboys Want to Parade.”
      • July 25, 1899: “Newsboy Strikers Orderly.”
      • July 26, 1899: “Newsboy Leaders Quit.”
      • July 26, 1899: “Condition of the Newsboys.”
      • July 27, 1899: “Newsboys’ Strike Still Firm.”
      • July 29, 1899: “Newsboy Strike Leaders”
      • July 31, 1899: “Newsboys Form A Union”
    • The Evening Telegram
      • July 20, 1899: “Newsboys Strike Against Two Papers”
      • July 21, 1899: “Newsboys’ Strike Spreads to Harlem”
      • July 22, 1899: “Boy Strikers Sweep the City”
      • July 24, 1899: “Can’t Break Boys’ Tie-Up”
      • July 25, 1899: “Newsboy Strike Gains Ground”
      • July 26, 1899: “Newsboys Ready to Show Strength”
      • July 27, 1899: “Salvation Lassies Wouldn’t Sell Them”
      • July 28, 1899: “Newsboys See Victory Ahead”
      • July 31, 1899: “Union to Enforce Newsboys’ Strike”
    • The Morning Telegraph
      • July 21, 1899: “Newsboys Turn Out on Strike”
      • July 22, 1899: “Newsboys Strike A Great Success”
      • July 23, 1899: “Newsboys Still Out On Strike”
      • July 25, 1899: “Tim Sullivan Makes A Talk”
      • July 28, 1899: “Newsboys’ Strike Must End”
      • July 29, 1899: “Kid th’ Blink” No longer on Top”
    • The New York Herald
      • July 21, 1899: “Newsboys Strike for Better Terms”
      • July 22, 1899: “Spread of Strike Fever Among Lads”
      • July 23, 1899: “Newsboys’ Strike Promises Success”
      • July 25, 1899: “Newsboys Wage A Merry War”
      • July 26, 1899: “Newsboys’ Strike Becomes General”
      • July 27, 1899: “Newsdealers and the Boy Strikers”
      • July 28, 1899: “Dealers Boycott to Aid Newsboys”
      • July 29, 1899: “Newsboy Strikers Keep Up the Fight”
      • July 30, 1899: “Striking Newsboys Stand Firm”
      • July 31, 1899: “Newsboys Form An Organization.”
    • The New York Times
      • July 21, 1899: “Newsboys Go On Strike”
      • July 22, 1899: “The Strike of the Newsboys”
      • July 23, 1899: “Striking Newsboys Are Firm”
      • July 23, 1899: “Newsboys May Be Uniformed”
      • July 24, 1899: “Mass Meeting of Newsboys”
      • July 25, 1899: “Newsboys Act and Talk”
      • July 25, 1899: “Violent Scenes During Day”
      • July 26, 1899: “Newsboys Still Hold Out”
      • July 26, 1899: “Seek To Help the Newsboys”
      • July 27,1899: “Newsboys Are Weakening”
      • July 28, 1899: “Newsboys Still Hold Out”
      • July 31, 1899: “Newsboys Form A New Union”
      • August 1, 1899: “Newboys Up For Blackmail”
      • August 1, 1899: “Declare Newsboys’ Strike a Failure.”
    • The New York Tribune
      • July 21, 1899: “Newsboys Go On Strike”
      • July 22, 1899: “Newsboys’ Strike Goes On”
      • July 23, 1899: “Newsboys’ Word Stands”
      • July 24, 1899: “A Newsboys’ Meeting”
      • July 25, 1899: “Boys Forsee A Victory”
      • July 25, 1899: “Newsboys Riot in Mount Vernon”
      • July 25, 1899: “Trenton Newsboys Strike”
      • July 25, 1899: “Park Row Capulets and Monatgues”
      • July 26, 1899: “‘Newsies’ Standing Fast”
      • July 26, 1899: “Yonkers Boys Form A Union”
      • July 26, 1899: “New-Haven Newsboys Strike, Too”
      • July 26, 1899: “Newsboys Striking In Paterson”
      • July 26, 1899: “Strikers in Cincinnati”
      • July 26, 1899: “Strikers Ahead in Mount Vernon”
      • July 27, 1899: “Tried for High Treason”
      • July 27, 1899: “Boys Eloquent in Brooklyn”
      • July 28,1899: “‘Kid’ Blink Arrested”
      • July 28, 1899: “Yonkers Boys Win A Victory”
      • July 28, 1899: “Providence Boys Join the Strike”
      • July 29, 1899: “‘Kid’ Blink Fined”
      • July 30, 1899: “Fable Repeated In Fact”
      • July 30, 1899: “New-York Newsboys,” Illustrated Supplement
      • July 31, 1899: “Newsboys’ Strike On Again”
      • July 31, 1899: “Yonkers Boys to Parade”
      • August 1, 1899: “Newsboys Plan Another Meeting”
      • August 1, 1899: “A Big Parade in Yonkers”
      • August 1, 1899: “Newsboys’ Strike in Asbury Park”
      • August 2, 1899: “Newsboys’ Boycott Over”
    • The Sun
      • July 20, 1899: “Newsboys ‘Go Out'”
      • July 21, 1899: “The Only Tie-Up In Town”
      • July 22, 1899: “Strike That Is A Strike”
      • July 23, 1899: “Newsboys’ Strike Swells”
      • July 24, 1899: “Plan to Down Newsboys”
      • July 24, 1899: “Sociological Students in Court”
      • July 25, 1899: “Great Meet of Newsboys”
      • July 25, 1899: “Troy Newsboys In Fight”
      • July 26, 1899: “Newsboys Parade To-Night”
      • July 27, 1899: “Parade To-Night, Sure”
      • July 27, 1899: “Newsboys Gain A Point”
      • July 28, 1899: “Newsboys Get New Leaders”
      • July 28, 1899: “Stole Newspapers from Girls and Women”
      • July 29, 1899: “Newsboys’ New Leader”
      • July 29, 1899: “A Kindergarten for Strikers”
      • July 31, 1899: “Rochester Newsboys to Go On Strike”
      • July 31: “Striking Newsboys Elect Officers”
      • August 1, 1899: “‘World’ Jails Newsboys”
      • August 2, 1899: “Newsboys Strike Up the State”
      • August 2, 1899: “Three Newsboys Arrested for Assault”
    • The World
      • July 30, 1899: “Herald Employees Sued for $10,000”
      • August 1, 1899: “Blackmailers Try to Profit by Strike”
      • August 3, 1899: “Plain Statement of Facts for Public Consideration”
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City Hall Park 1899

~ History of the Newsboys Strike of 1899, through actual newspaper articles from the time.

City Hall Park 1899

Tag Archives: dodges

Philip Marcus on the Christmas Dodge

12 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by cityhallpark1899 in General

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Christmas, dodges, holidays, oral history, Philip Marcus

Even Christmas time wasn’t immune from newsboys pulling dodges on their customers. Philip Marcus had this to say about how they would make extra money around the holiday:

III

The big guys thought this one up. We pulled it every Christmas.

They’d have cards printed up, and they’d sell them to us little fellows for a nickel apiece. Let’s see if I remember just what was on those.

Somethin’ like this:

“Christmas comes but once a year,
“And when it comes it brings good cheer;
“So open your purse without a tear,
“And remember the newsboy standing here.”

Well, we paid a nickel apiece for those cards, and whenever we sold a paper we’d hand the card to the customer. Sometimes it was good for as much as a quarter. But this was the payoff. We always asked for the card back. They’d give us something, and they’d expect to keep the card, but we’d ask for it back; we’d use the same card over and over again—it would cost us a nickel to get another one. We called the big guys the “midnight cuckoos”—I don’t remember why.

Philip Marcus on “Dodges”

10 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by cityhallpark1899 in General

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dodges, oral history, Philip Marcus

As part of the oral history project, in May of 1939, Philip Marcus sat down with a project worker and talked about what it was like to be a newsboy on the streets of Chicago. Here is a little of what he had to say concerning dodges that he and his friends used to use:

I

When papers was a penny apiece was the days when I was selling them. I was a little lad then, and I lived on the streets practically all day, days and nights both. We used to sneak in the burlesque houses or the all-night places on West Madison Street and sleep there. The only trouble with that was the ushers would come around every hour or so and throw the flashlight in your face to see was you awake. You wasn’t supposed to go to sleep. Sometimes they threw us out.

We had a lot of dodges. A penny was a lot of money to us, and a nickel was a hell of a lot. A dime or a quarter was a fortune.

I practically grew up on a pool table.

Here’s one of the dodges us newskids used to have in those days for making money.

You know how a guy is when he buys a newspaper. He’s a fan of something or other, baseball nine time out of ten, and he’s got the boxscore habit. You hand him a paper, and right away he’s looking at the boxscore; he’s holding the paper in one hand, reading the scores, and the other hand’s stuck out for the change; he takes his change by ear, see, by ear and touch if you get it; he’s reading. So me, I lay a penny in his hand if it’s a nickel, say, that he gave me. Then I click the second penny on the first and count two. And the same with the third penny. Each time the penny drops on the other pennies in his hand. But the last penny I hold onto; I click it on the other pennies, but I don’t let go on it, and he thinks he’s got all of his change. Nine times out of ten he sticks the pennies in his pocket without even lookin’ at them, an’ that’s the dodge.

II

Here’s another petty larceny trick we had. We’d pull it at car stops where they had stop lights.

When the streetcar was waiting for a red light to turn, we used to run up alongside the car and the people in the car would stick their hands through the windows for a paper. He’d stick his hand outside the window and maybe he’d have a nickel or a dime in it instead of the change, the penny, and later, when the war started, two pennies.

If he gave us a nickel or a dime, it was just too bad. We’d fumble, we’d try and we’d fumble—boy; we sure had to dig deep for that change —and we’d run along beside the car when it started, but—it never failed—we just couldn’t reach him, the car would be picking up speed and we just couldn’t reach his hand with that change. It never failed to happen. But I’ve had guys got off the car at the next stop and come back and make me give them their change. They were wised up, I guess, or maybe they’d sold papers once themselves. Anyway, I’ve had that happen to me.

XIV

One of our favorite stunts, if a guy didn’t have anything smaller than a nickel or a dime or a quarter or something like that was to plead we had no change. Then we’d go to some convenient saloon—there was always a saloon handy—and these saloons, they all had two entrances. They guy would watch us go in one entrance an’ stand outside it waitin’ for us to come out with his change. But we’d slip out the other entrance an’ go lookin’ for another guy who needed change for a nickel or a dime or a quarter or somethin’ like that.

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