In the Norman Rockwell version of America we carry around in our heads, the paperboy lives forever.
We see him peddling his bicycle down tree-lined streets, reaching into his canvas bag and tossing the latest edition with admirable precision onto the stoop, perhaps nodding to the milkman as he makes his round or chatting with Officer Friendly, the beat cop, on the corner. He may encounter the mailman, too, and, perhaps the drug store delivery man.
It is a reminder of a time when the world made house calls.
The milkman is long gone, of course, and the door-to-door salesman are a vanishing breed. People buy their vacuum cleaners at big box stores and it’s been probably 30 years since the last Encyclopedia salesman rang the doorbell of an unsuspecting homemaker. You can get a pizza delivered to your doorstep, but the drug store doesn’t deliver.
FedEx and UPS deliver goods we order Online from Amazon or eBay.
Officer Friendly wears combat gear and cruises the beat in a car with tinted windows.
The mailman still makes his rounds, though, and so does the paperboy, although he is not the kid you imagine in our moments of Rockwellian nostalgia.
The first paperboy, we are told, was Barney Flaherty, a 10-year-old kid who answered an advertisement in The New York Sun in 1833.
For the next 100-plus years, being a paperboy was the first exposure to the world of work for thousands of kids, mostly boys.
In the offices of The Dispatch, a photo of the newspaper’s “circulation department” taken around 1933, shows a group of 37 paperboys. A half-dozen are barefoot and none of them are beyond their teens.
Today, however, the paperboy is pretty much a misnomer. Now, the person who delivers your newspaper is almost always an adult and can be male or female, as is the case with Mae Pitman, 65, who will end her 40-plus-year career as a Dispatch carrier today.
There are, here and there, exceptions such as Ben Potter, a 9-year-old who delivered The Dispatch in 2011 before giving up his small route when his family moved to Montana.
As is the case with many of our institutions, much has changed. Kids rarely hold these jobs, which is due partly to the dwindling number of afternoon newspapers, whose delivery times worked better for school-aged children.
There are, of course fewer newspapers of any kind as more and more people turn to the Internet to get their news. In 1880, there were an astonishing 7,000 newspapers in the U.S. Now, there are about 1,200. There are also other factors. Employment laws and concerns about safety of unescorted children have made the paperboy, as we imagine him, a relic of a bygone era.
While that demographic has changed, the role of the newspaper carrier remains an important part of an evolving industry. As long as their remains a demand for print newspapers, the carrier is essential and not just for distribution.
In many respects, the newspaper carrier is something on an ambassador. Unlike other products, newspapers are not brick-and-mortar retailers. Often the only personal connection between the consumer and the producer is the carrier. The carrier puts a human face on what is, for many, a faceless institution.
The carrier is often plays the role of the “eyes and ears” of the newspaper. They are out in the community, engaging people, making note of the things they see. Over the years, carriers have been the initial source for numerous stories that might not otherwise ever appear in the newspaper.
Sept. 4, the date that Barney Flaherty became the nation’s first paperboy, is recognized as Newspaper Carrier Day and while the era of the paperboy, in his original form, has long since past, the mission remains the same.
Someday, perhaps, the newspaper as we know it will become a relic of a bygone era.
Until then, the carrier will be out there, bringing the world to our doorsteps.
There is something comforting and wholesome about that.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.