Back in the day of publishers William Randolph Hearst  and Joseph Pulitzer, newsboys were essential players in the circulation pipeline, cheap labor that made the highly competitive industry profitable. The newsboy became an America cultural trope or archetype, a focus of rags-to-riches fiction, the target of pity and social welfare activism, a smiling stereotype, an exemplar of hard work, and an incarnation of urban poverty. "Please Buy My Last Paper, I Want to Go Home”: Portrayal of Newsboys and Newsgirls in 19th and 20th Century Music" is a talk given last Fall by Joshua Duchan from Wayne State University’s Music Department and Eric Freedman from the Michigan State University School of Journalism. The talk was part of MSU’s Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives brown bag series, organized by John Beck. Today’s show features highlights from that talk, and adds in a number of the songs they reference. On this week’s Labor History in Two: renowned Illinois poet Carl Sandburg wrote about workers in Gary, Indiana and farmers around Omaha, Nebraska; he wrote about railroad workers and steel workers.

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Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

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