Figure 1.-- This pool room was located at Chouteau & Manchester, in St. Louis. The boys there played pool and smoked while waiting for papers. The smallest boy is 9 years old and sells until 9 PM at night. The photograph was taken in May 1910. Note the boy wearing overalls. That was not real common, but St. Louis was a large city located in a rural area. Also notice that the other boys are wearing knee pants, by this time knickers were replacing straight-leg knee pants as standard boys clothing.

Boys continued selling newspapers. We see many boys selling papers on the streets in the 1900s and early 1910s. This is dramatically illustrated by the photo-journalists inspired by the Progressive Movement. These images and Progressive journalists helped address major social problems in Americ, including child labor. Child labor laws and school attendance laws were enacted during the 1910s and 20s. The pattern across the United States was uneven. The first child labor laws and all school attendance laws were sate laws. The Depression beginning in 1929 also had an impact. Jobs were so difficult to find during the Depression that men replaced newsboys. Child labor laws also became more strictly enforced. A shift occurred during the 1920s and the 1930s (Depression era). Rather than selling newspapers on street corners, boys began increasingly delivering newspapers door to door, either before or after school. Down town, papers were sold at street kiosk newsstands by men or in stores. We are not precisely sure about the chronology involved here. I think the Saturday Evening Post was in the early 20th centuiry delivered by boys who had routes rather than mail. We note another shift which began in the 1980s with adults replacing boys with delivering newspapers. Tghey use cars and have larger routs than boys on foot or using bicyles had. Saftey may be another factor. We note that immigrants are often involved.

Created: 6:36 PM 1/6/2009
Last updated: 6:36 PM 1/6/2009