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 SpanishAmerican 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.