Crying the News

In Crying the News: A History of America's Newsboys, Vincent DiGirolamo gives newsboys the historical weight they are due. ... Future scholars of child labor and print journalism will benefit from DiGirolamo's historical unearthing of their lived experiences, deftly contextualized within the broad arc of American history. -- Cristina Groeger, The Metropole To say the book is a comprehensive, definitive account of the subject would be a grotesque understatement. DiGirolamo has spent more than two decades researching this subject, and the results are breathtaking. The author resurrects countless historical characters, telling their stories with ingenuity and grace. At the same time, he provides a comprehensive history of American newspaper publishing and supplies one of the best contributions to the history of youth yet to appear.... At first glance, a history of news hawkers might seem like a limited subject, but Crying the News is social history at its best. For anyone looking for a comprehensive social history of the (really) long nineteenth century, this book would be an excellent place to start. -- James Schmidt, New England Quarterly Monumental....The book situates newsboys in the march of history from the country's economic takeoff, to the rupture between labor and capital, to government interventions into laboring children's welfare.... DiGirolamo's...attention to both the positive and negative sides of newsboys' lived experiences...and their varying complicity with and resistance to capitalism, makes for a well-balanced book that refuses to romanticize its subjects. -- Ronald J. Zboray and Mary Saracino Zboray, Journalism History In their time, newsboys (girls were rare) were American iconsDLsymbols of unflagging industry and tattered, barefoot, shivering objects of pity. They had their own argot and better news judgment than many editors, because they had to size up the appeal of every edition to determine how many copies to buy from the publisher .These waifs, urchins, street Arabs, ragamuffins, gamins, juvenile delinquents and guttersnipes, as they were called, now have their Boswell in Vincent DiGirolamo .His Crying the News: A History of America's Newsboys is an encyclopedic account of these heralds of the golden age of newspapers in America. They were essential contributors to the newspaper economy and ink-smudged secondhand witnesses to history Crying the News is really a social history of the American press from the 19th century to World War II. DLEdward Kosner, Wall Street Journal Rescuing 'newsies' from the condescension of history with inventive curiosity and stunningly wide research, Vincent DiGirolamo has restored these crucial child laborersDLboys and girls, white and blackDLto their central place in American cities. His revelations about hawking the news offer an ingenious guide to understanding the changing relations between labor and capital and between print media and society in the United States. DLNancy F. Cott, Harvard University Richly researched, incisively analytic, and compellingly written, Crying the News cuts through the nostalgic myths that envelop the newsboy and lets us enter into their lives, with their distinctive banter, camaraderie, argot, dress, rituals, and ethics. A vivid window into the nation's first urban youth culture and the evolution of news media, this book offers a stunning example of a history that treats the young as active agents who were far more capable and competent than contemporary society assumes. DLSteven Mintz, University of Texas at Austin Crying the News offers a century of American history through the lens of one of our most iconic charactersDLthe newsboy. DiGirolamo focuses on the intimate relationship between news criers and capitalism. Newsboys' voices animate the narrative and deepen our understanding not only of their lives, but also of their communities and their nation. DLJames Marten, Marquette University Traditionally a stock figure in American history and culture, the newsboy finally sheds his (and her) picaresque, picturesque, and marginal status in Vincent DiGirolamo's comprehensive and revelatory study. At once a social, cultural, labor, reform, journalism, and capitalist history, Crying the News is an amazing feat of research and writing that, with extraordinary scope and meticulous detail, captures the diverse experience of the 'newsies' as it reveals how we cannot fully understand a hundred years of US life without reckoning with these children and young adults. DLJoshua Brown, City University of New York Graduate Center