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The SHS Drama and Music Departments to perform
Disney's The Newsies
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.
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