Category: Images

The Newsboy Lodging House

Tumblr user explorethecosmosandfallinlove asked:

hi i have no idea if this blog is still active it is very late and i am very tired but i was just wondering what you knew about the lodging houses? how they were laid out, what the conditions were like, if the rooms were separate or like all together or a combination? thanks!

Yes this blog certainly is still active! I know a fair amount about the lodging houses, so here we go!

The lodging houses were created to help the homeless youth of New York City after it was discovered that they didn’t trust most of the free programs in the city, thinking the Sunday Schools and the like were just there to trick them and send them to jail. Seeing this, people who wanted to help homeless children decided to create a system that would give the children a bit more freedom while still keeping them off the dangerous streets at night.

The first of the lodging houses was opened at 9 Duane St. in March 1854, offering a bed and a bath for six cents, and a meal for an additional four. It allowed only boys and also turned away anybody who was found to have living parents. However, children of all races and religions were allowed to stay in the house. Boys were not allowed to smoke or swear in the house, but as long as they followed the rules and kept the midnight curfew they were allowed to come and go as they pleased.

As the house became more established, they also opened a school and required all children staying there to attend either a morning or an evening class. The house was also open during the day as a trade school, teaching not only the residents but also the surrounding community trades such as sewing or cooking.

The building at 9 Duane St. had six levels. The first was rented out to shops, the second held the dining room, kitchen and laundry, as well as sleeping quarters for the servants and the superintendent, the third had the school, gymnasium, check-in desk and washrooms, the fourth and fifth floors were the dormitories, and the top floor held a gymnasium. Above that was an attic full of extra beds that could be filled if there was a particularly cold night.

Most boys stayed in the dormitories with rows of bunk beds, but some paid a few extra cents for the opportunity to sleep in a more private bed partitioned from the others by curtains, known as “dude rooms”. In 1904, the Duane St lodging house also opened the “Waldorf Room” which cost 15 cents for the privilege of a room with only five other boys in it. Every bed had a locker assigned to it where boys could safely keep their belongings for the night.

The lodging houses were quite popular. Between their start in 1854 and the publication of Darkness and Daylight in 1892, they claim to have housed 250,000 children. Some of these children remained in the city and were helped to find their own apartments individually or in groups, others were sent to families out West looking for farmhands, some of whom ended up being formally adopted by those families.

The information in this post mainly comes from the book Darkness and Daylight by Helen Campbell. If you want to learn more about the lodging houses, you can check out that book, my “lodging house” tag, or the website “No 9 Duane Street”.

Thank you for the question and if anybody else has anything they want to ask please feel free to do so!

Who was Niney Donegan?

Question from Tumblr user snowie-sparks:

Do you have any more information regarding “Niney” Donegan. Like maybe on his life as a gangster and leader of the Yakey Yakes? I mean the guy intrigues me. He seems like quite the character. I’m surprised Disney didn’t include him in the film or broadway show

Thanks for the question! I had a lot of fun looking into this. I put off writing this because I was so interested in learning more about him before answering. You’re right that he’s quite the character and that’s probably exactly why Disney chose not to include him. (That and they probably didn’t do enough digging to know he existed, and even if they did they don’t want another visibly disabled character.)

I’ve found a few sources on Niney, mostly related to his trial. Keeping in mind that newspapers at the time were incredibly unreliable, especially the Evening World where much of this is sourced from, here’s what I could find.

Thomas “Niney” Donegan was orphaned at the age of five. He grew up in a neighbourhood know as “The Gap”, in a lodging house on Hamilton St., between Munroe and Cherry, infamous for the number of criminals to come out of there. He lost both his left eye and one finger on his left hand in fights as a child. He was known by many nicknames, including “Niney,” “Nine-Eye,” “Nine-Fingered Tom,” “One-Eyed Donegan,” and “Nine-Fingered, One-Eyed Donegan.”

It is unclear when Donegan became a newsboy, but he was certainly selling papers during the strike of 1899. If his arrest records are to be believed, he was 13 at the time. Donegan seems to have had a relatively small role in the strike, although one article does claim he was briefly elected president of the union after Kid Blink was accused of scabbing. There is also an article from 1901 naming him as a member of a newsboy basketball team organized by the lodging house, and a friend of Kid Blink’s.

Donegan’s first brush with the law was when he was twelve years old. He was caught stealing old barrels near Fulton Market and selling them to peddlers. In August of 1899, he was charged with assault and highway robbery for jumping a man on Park Row to steal his watch, and a few years later he was brought in again for pickpocketing and served six months at the Catholic Protectory. A few months after his release he was given another six months for stealing shoes, and a few years after that he was charged with being drunk and disorderly and released on a $500 bail.

At least some of these crimes were likely in connection with his involvement with the Yakey Yake gang. The gang leaders taught him to steal and other such skills from a young age, and he soon joined their ranks as a full member. He became the leader of the Yakey Yake Gang sometime in the early 1900s after their founder, James Brady, fled to New Jersey.

Shortly after midnight on the morning of January 10, 1905, Donegan hid in the shadows near the corner of Catharine and Madison, waiting for James Brennan: leader of the rival Cherry Hill gang with whom he had recently argued over ten cents in a game of either poker or pool (sources vary). When Brennan came into view, Donegan shot him, twice in the head and twice in the chest, before fleeing the scene. Donegan was found by the police a few nights later at the home of his sister Maggie. Rumour among the Yakey Yakes was that Donegan had called the police to come get him himself, believing turning himself in would make him less likely to be killed for his crime.

Donegan was tried by the New York Supreme Court in March of 1905, and sentenced to sixteen years and two months in Sing Sing prison on a charge of first-degree manslaughter. During his trial, Donegan’s lawyer argued that he ought to get a reduced sentence because in killing Brennan he had taken out a bad man who had been a trouble to police for years. The court records claim he was 19 years old at the time, but newspaper reports give ages ranging from 18 to 24. I haven’t found any evidence of what happened to Niney after that. Later census records show a man born in New York named Thomas Donegan living in Saint Louis, but there is no evidence one way or another that this is the same man.

This is a photo of Donegan, originally printed in the Evening World on March 7, 1905 and edited slightly by me to reduce distortion in the original image: 

Sources and more information:
”Newsboys Get New Leaders.” The Sun [New York City] 28 July 1899: pp. 2.
”Here are Newsboy Highwaymen.” The Sun [New York City] 4 Aug. 1899: pp.9.
“Murder by Two Yakey Yakes.” The Sun [New York City] 10 Jan 1905: pp.1.
”9-Eyed Donegan is at ‘De Bat’.” The Evening World [New York City] 28 February 1905: pp. 3.
“Thomas Donegan Admits he Slew James Brennan.” The Evening World [New York City] 2 March 1905: pp. 5.
Sing Sing Prison Records for Thomas Donegan, 3 March 1905
“Nine Eyed Donegan Gets 16 Years in Jail.” The Sun [New York City] 4 March 1905: pp. 11.
“The Wickedest Boy on the East Side.” The Evening World [New York City] 7 March 1905: pp. 8.

The Pulitzer Family

  • Joseph Pulitzer, 52 at the time of the strike.
  • Kate Davis Pulitzer, 46 at the time of the strike.
  • Ralph Pulitzer, oldest son, 2.5 years older than Katherine
  • Joseph Pulitzer Jr. , middle son, 3 years younger than Katherine
  • Herbert “Tony” Pulitzer, youngest son, 14.5 years younger than Katherine
  • Lucille Irma Pulitzer, oldest daughter, 1.5 years older than Kath
  • Edith Pulitzer, third daughter, 4 years younger than Katherine
  • Constance Helen Pulitzer, youngest daughter, 6 years younger than Kath

Photos found by Tumblr user newsiesquare.

Girls, As Boys, Eat Newsboy Turkey

“Thanksgiving Scenes in the City” from the 
New York Daily-Tribune, November 30, 1906

“Superintendent Rudolph Heig of the Brace Memorial Newsboys’ Lodging House, at No. 14 New Chambers street, had charge of a dinner for two thousand newsboys yesterday. Several Cherry Hill girls, in boys’ attire, were found at the tables. They told Superintendent Heig they had been playing vagabond all day and, being hungry, went to the dinner as newsboys. They were allowed to continue at the feast. The food left when the newsboys were full was given to five hundred hungry men from Park Row lodging houses.”

New York Daily-Tribune, November 30, 1906

Newsies of Colour

Ask from Tumblr user actually-al:

Hi, me again! I just want to know if there were any black/african american/poc newsies? It seems plausible but considering how discrimination and racism was a thing, thats where im confused. Love the blog!!!

Yes, there certainly were! Newsboys generally came from the lower classes of society, so the fact that there was racism would only lead to there being more Black/POC newsies. According to David Nasaw, many of the newsies were either first- or second-generation immigrants from many different countries.

Even though much of society was still racially segregated, the Newsboy Lodging House was explicitly not so, with children of all races and nationalities accepted so long as they could pay (or work off) the lodging fees. Note the Black boy in the back right of this drawing of boys playing dominoes in the Lodging House:

At least two of the strikers mentioned in articles at the time were also Black: William “Coon” Reese, and “The Black Wonder”. If we’re expanding the parameters from Black only to all people of colour, there were even more newsies of colour, including the Indigenous “Bob Indian” Stone.

It’s also worth considering that the definition of whiteness changes over time. At the turn of the century, Irish, Italian and Jewish immigrants would have all been considered people of colour. These three demographics together made up as much as 80% of New York newsboys according to (very rough) estimates at the time of the strike. (Trigger warnings for racist and ableist language in the source link)

So in short, yes, there were many people of colour working as newsboys at the turn of the century. Depending on your definition of “people of colour”, it may have even been the majority of them.

Enjoy some newsies of colour:

You’re right that this blog is a little bit white. Thank you for pointing that out. I enjoyed looking for these photos and I hope you like seeing them.

In the Grip of the Blizzard

newsiesquare:

In the Grip of the Blizzard was one of the first movies ever to be filmed in NYC, taken in March during the Great Blizzard of 1899. It was shot at the corner of Broadway and Fourteenth Street and gives an almost 360 degree view of ‘Dead Man’s Curve’ covered over in snow and ice. 

Showing NYC at the busiest time of the day, it proves that New Yorkers aren’t too tied up by even an enormous fall of snow. 

Note what looks like a newsie slipping across the ice at 1:00!

Chief William S. Devery

Post originally from Tumblr user musicalcuriosity:

Chief Devery was the police chief in New York City at the time of the Newsboys’ Strike of 1899. 

Evidently there had been several scandals that had rocked the NYC Police Department in the 1890s (as noted in the in the blurb under the video here), including the dismissal of Chief Devery in 1897, after his arrest for bribery and extortion. He was re-instated in 1898, whereupon he became Chief. He was also criticized for his handling of the Tenderloin Race Riots. 

He was also a part of Tammany Hall, the political machine that ran New York City (he paid them $200 in 1878 to begin work as a patrolman for the police department, and subsequently paid his way up the proverbial ladder very quickly). 

A thing to note: Devery was friends with Timothy “Dry Dollar” Sullivan, another member of Tammany Hall and a politician. While Devery was clearly in opposition to the boys participating in the strike, Sullivan was a supporter of newsboys. 

Devery and Frank J. Ferrell (another Tammany Hall member who, with Sullivan, lined Devery’s pockets) co-owned the Yankees at some point in time. 

Newsboys and the Theatre

One popular way for the newsboys to spend their hard-earned money was on tickets to see vaudeville shows and other types of theatre. A ticket to the cheap seats of the theatre generally cost between 10 and 15 cents. This bought a hard wood seat in a part of the theatre away from the more high-paying guests. In the 1870s and 80s this meant the “pit” directly in front of the theatre, and later these seats moved up to balconies above other patrons.

The newsboys were rowdy theatre patrons. Surrounded by friends their age, they talked loudly over the acts, cheering the ones they liked and jeering at ones they didn’t. In the days of the “pit”, they would also throw rotten fruit and snack wrappers at actors they particularly disliked.

Because the newsies were so openly critical of acts they didn’t like, the performers would act specifically to please the boys in the cheap seats. Actors who failed to do so often lost their jobs because it is difficult to act while also dodging projectiles from the audience. So while people working in high-class theatres often acted to the boxes where the expensive seats were, vaudevillians’ main job was to please the patrons who had paid the least in order to earn the opportunity to perform for the higher-paying audience members.

Image: “Where the boys spend their money. Location: St. Louis” from the Louis Hine Collection

Sources: Darkness and Daylight, by Helen Campbell, Thomas Knox and Thomas Byrnes
Children of the City: At Work and At Play, by David Nasaw