Boyville: A History of Fifteen Years' Work Among Newsboys

Toledo OH: The Toledo Newsboys' Association. Good. (c.1905). First Edition. Hardcover. (photographic paper label on front cover; no dust jacket) [serviceable copy, one-inch rip in spine cloth at upper front joint, narrow reddish stain along right edge of front cover, very slight fraying to cloth at several corners]. (B&W plates) A nonfiction account of the lives of young newsies, and of the founding (in 1892) of the Boyville Newsboys' Association (the specific location of which doesn't seem to be revealed, but let's assume it was in Toledo, Ohio). It's a very Progressive-Era kind of enterprise, with its stated purpose being not to "draw good boys from good homes; but rather to give help to bad boys, come from where they may, when they appear on the streets -- away from home influences." The book rather subtly suggests the involvement of then-President Theodore Roosevelt in the enterprise, but I'm dubious: the book opens with a quote from T.R., and the frontispiece photo purports to show "the president" addressing an assemblage of about sixty or so newsboys -- but he's seen from a distance, and from the rear, so really it could have been any somewhat stocky fellow. (And there's a character referred to "Mr. President" or "the president" who pops up now and again throughout the book, but I doubt very much that Teddy was spending much time hanging around Toledo, Ohio. And the old guy pictured with the newsboys on the front cover is definitely not Roosevelt.) At any rate, Boyville more or less "went national" in 1904, when the National Newsboy's Association was formed, with its founding ceremony taking place at the World's Fair in St. Louis, and a marching band was subsequently put together to participate in T.R.'s inaugural parade in Washington, D.C. in March 1905. The book is illustrated with 28 black-and-white plates (mostly photographic, some with two images on a page). .