By Pedro Lahoz Wolfe
Newsies is a musical based on real events that took place in the 1890’s in New York City. Newsies were kids of about 8 to 14 years old who sold newspapers and started a strike.
They weren’t getting enough money from the big bosses of two of the biggest newspapers at that time, New York World and the New York Journal. The owners of the papers were two of the richest people in America.
The newsies, mainly poor or homeless boys and sometimes girls, had to buy the newspapers with money they had made the day before, and the bosses decided to start charging them more. So a couple of the newsies started thinking it was really unfair.
They weren’t getting enough money to support their families, if they even had families. Many of them slept on the streets. So they went to all the different parts of New York City and convinced all the other groups of newsies to join together in a huge strike.
In the end they won. They didn’t get paid more, but they convinced the big bosses to give them money back for the papers they could not sell. I strongly recommend this movie to people who want to learn about past strikes and what it was like when kids had to work.
Pedro Lahoz-Wolfe, age 8, is a student in New York City.
completely new fan. I saved your main website for reference.