# Paperboy > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Paperboy > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Paperboy.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paperboy > Source revision: 1333653406 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{Short description|Boy who delivers newspapers}} {{About|boys delivering newspapers to subscribers|newspaper street vendors|Newspaper hawker|other uses}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2026}} [[File:Toronto Star paperboy Whitby.jpg|thumb|upright|A paperboy for the ''[Toronto Star](/source/Toronto_Star)'' in [Whitby, Ontario](/source/Whitby%2C_Ontario), Canada, 1940]] A '''paperboy''' is someone{{snd}}often an older [child](/source/child) or [adolescent](/source/adolescent){{snd}}who distributes printed [newspaper](/source/newspaper)s to homes or offices on a regular route, usually by [bicycle](/source/bicycle) or [automobile](/source/automobile). In Western nations during the heyday of print newspapers during the early 20th century, this was often a young person's first job, perhaps undertaken before or after school. This contrasts with the newsboy or [newspaper hawker](/source/newspaper_hawker), now extremely rare in Western nations, who would sell newspapers to passersby on the street, often with very vocal promotion. They were common when multiple daily papers in every city{{snd}}as many as 50 in [New York City](/source/New_York_City) alone{{snd}}competed. ==History== 150px|thumb|Paperboy license for boys under age 14 in 1970, when girls were not allowed to deliver newspapers in New York State The duties of a paperboy varied by distributor,{{cite web |last1=Gurr |first1=Bob |title=DESIGN: Those Were The Times - No.24 1943 Movie Stars and Paper Routes |url=https://www.micechat.com/51265-design-times-24-1943-movie-stars-paper-routes/ |website=MiceChat |access-date=7 March 2022 |date=11 December 2013}} but usually included counting and separating papers, rolling papers and inserting them in [newspaper bag](/source/newspaper_bag)s during inclement weather, and collecting payments from customers.{{cite news |agency=AP |author=Julia Malakie |title=While you were sleeping, the paperboy grew up |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna12485231 |website=msnbc.com |access-date=December 20, 2019 |date=April 26, 2006}} The number of paperboys experienced a major decline. This is due partly to the disappearance of afternoon newspapers, whose delivery times worked better for school-aged children than did those of morning papers, which were typically delivered before 6 a.m. The numbers have also been affected by changing demographics, the availability of news and newspapers on the Internet, employment laws (particularly the mid-20th-century ban of [child labour](/source/child_labour)), the decline of small towns that could be traversed by bicycle, and growing concerns for the safety of unescorted children, all of which have led many newspapers to switch to delivery by adults. Today, they are mainly used by weekly [community newspaper](/source/Weekly_newspaper)s and free shopper papers, which still tend to be delivered in the afternoons. Alternatively, sometimes paperboys are only employed once a week to deliver the paper on Sunday. Many deliveries these days are by adults in cars, known as newspaper carriers. They have traditionally been hired by the newspapers as independent contractors.{{cite web |url=https://www.kmco.com/resource-center/article/looking-forward/some-states-do-not-recognize-newspaper-carriers-as-independent-contractors/ |title=Some States Do Not Recognize Newspaper Carriers as Independent Contractors |publisher=Kreischer Miller |date=June 14, 2012 }}{{cite news |author=Gabrielle Canon |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/09/14/newspapers-carveout-carriers-ab-5-ab-170-california-delivery-labor/2316176001/ |title=Late-night win for California newspapers: Lawmakers OK 1-year exemption to AB 5 for carriers |newspaper=USA Today |date=September 14, 2019 }} == See also == * [Bicycle messenger](/source/Bicycle_messenger) * [Child labour](/source/Child_labour) * [Newsagent's shop](/source/Newsagent's_shop) * [Newspaper Carrier Day](/source/Newspaper_Carrier_Day) * [''Paperboys'' (documentary)](/source/Paperboys_(documentary)) * [Newspaper delivery bag](/source/Newspaper_delivery_bag) == References == {{Reflist}} ==External links== * {{commons category-inline|Newsboys}} * Preus Museum. [https://www.flickr.com/photos/preusmuseum/sets/72157628680143649 Lewis Hine, Newspaperboys] photos. * Vincent DiGirolamo, [https://vincentdigirolamo.com/ Crying the News: A History of America's Newsboys] (Oxford University Press, 2019). {{Authority control}} Category:Child labour Category:Children by occupation Category:Mobile businesses Category:Newspaper distribution Category:Newspaper people --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Paperboy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paperboy) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paperboy?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.