The history of Newsies can be traced to long before the musical opened on Broadway. The 2012 stage musical is an

adaptation of the 1992 movie featuring Christian Bale, which itself traces its roots all the way back to 1899 when a group of newsies banded

together to fight for their rights.

Based on a True Story

Newsies is based on the real-life Newsboys Strike of 1899. The New York newsies – boys and girls who sold newspapers on the

street – went up against two newspaper publishers, Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World and William Randolph Hearst of the

New York Journal, to fight for the chance to earn a livable wage. 

The Spanish-American War made New Yorkers hungry for headlines, and circulation boomed as a result. Once the war ended,

people were less inclined to buy newspapers – war was bad for the world, but great for the newspaper business. The strike

was the result of the newspaper publishers refusing to lower the newsies’ cost-per-paper back down to the pre-war prices. The

newsies were not willing to pay more for their papers to make up for a lack of headlines, so they decided to strike – their goal

was to make the newspaper tycoons treat them as legitimate members of the business.

The strike lasted two weeks, from July 20 to August 2, 1899. The newsies eventually came to a compromise with the

publishers: The price would stay the same, but the publishers would buy back any papers that the newsies couldn’t sell. The

newsies’ strike is a significant moment in history: It is one of the first strikes that was carried out by children and it ended in

compromise. The kids succeeded!

Excerpt Taken from MTI Newsies Production Handbook