Coxey's Army passes "Newspaper Row"

Introduction

Text-to-speech Audio

As Coxey’s Army turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue, they marched through what was once Washington’s “Newspaper Row.” In this part of town, Coxey and his men would have seen several buildings that housed Washington’s numerous city newspapers as well as the Washington bureaus of several out-of-town papers. The Evening Star Building located at the northeast corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 11th Street, N.W. was built four years after Coxey and his men passed by but remains one of the surviving examples of the newspaper headquarters that once comprised “Newspaper Row.” The media played a critical role in telling the story of Coxey’s march on Washington, which was one of the most widely read and followed stories in U.S. history. Coxey and his partner Browne enlisted the media to spread the word about their demands and employed a sophisticated public relations strategy for the time. Although many newspaper and magazine stories sought to portray Coxey and his marchers as anarchists, other reports depicted the unemployed and homeless in a more sympathetic light, helping to change public perceptions about those out of work. Coxey also integrated African Americans into his march, which produced widespread support from Washington’s Black community.

Images

Evening Star Building

Coxey in Washington

Backstory and Context

Text-to-speech Audio

Coxey’s march on Washington was the most widely covered press story in U.S. history at the time since the Civil War. Journalists started reporting on the march even before the first step was taken toward Washington, D.C. Reporters filed thousands of stories in the course of the march, including daily reports from numerous reporters embedded with the marchers. By the time Coxey, Browne, and their unemployed band of followers reached the capital, they were household names across the United States. Millions of Americans read portrayals of individual marchers, learning of their personal hardships and motivations for joining Coxey, as well as the antics and interpersonal conflicts that sometimes surfaced as tensions boiled over as the men moved east. Reporters also detailed the financial and logistical challenges that Coxey had to overcome to enable his men to reach Washington.

Coxey and Browne also helped shape the stories that reporters filed about the march. First, they made certain that the unemployed joining their march did not have criminal records nor were considered anarchists. They recruited American-born, married men that represented numerous trades. Few were union members. Second, Coxey and his men welcomed the press into their ranks, sharing with them details on their personal histories and their objectives in marching. Finally, Coxey and especially Browne paid attention to the visual imagery of the march as they advanced on the capital. They carried banners, murals, and badges that displayed reform messages and religious themes. They decorated wagons and included musicians and singers. On May 1, as they proceeded to the Capitol, the Goddess of Peace – Coxey’s daughter in costume on a stallion – led the way as each protester carried white flags adorned with a message of peace.

Coxey and Browne’s efforts at shaping the media story produced mixed results. Some reports depicted them as once-hardworking Americans desperate for help, while others saw in the marchers an invasion of anarchists sure to bring crime and violence to Washington. Although the government as it prepared for the marchers’ arrival focused on the latter, many Americans for the first time began to see the unemployed in a new light. The Gilded Age lauded those who rose through their own hard work and viewed the unemployed as lazy, underachievers worthy of little public assistance. The journalists who covered Coxey’s Army told a humanistic account of the marchers, enabling the public to begin to see them with greater sympathy. Instead of down-and-out tramps (as the homeless were called at that time) readers began to see the marchers as decent men in need of sympathy if not help. These reports also influenced reformers, who called for the study of the economic consequences creating unemployment and for improved statistical analysis of the jobless. The story of Coxey’s Army not only helped humanize the plight of the unemployed and the homeless, it demonstrated the growing power of the press to influence public opinion.

Another striking feature of Coxey’s march was his decision to integrate African American workers into his protest. Coxey made certain that his camps did not include segregated conditions, which prevailed south of the Mason-Dixon Line and that African Americans featured prominently in his protest march. An African American unemployed worker, for example, served as the flag bearer, leading the procession out of Massillon, Ohio and was again in the lead as the procession turned down Pennsylvania Avenue. Black newspapers eagerly reported on the marchers’ journey to Washington and word spread quickly about it through the city’s growing African American community, which already represented approximately one-third the city’s population in 1894. As the marchers moved past Newspaper Row toward the eastern end of Pennsylvania Avenue, they would likely have seen thousands of Black supporters cheering them along.

Coxey, however, did not include women marchers into his ranks, fearing the press might depict his movement as corrupting then-prevailing social mores. But other Coxey-inspired protest marches included women as both participants and leaders.

Sources

1. Prout, Jerry. Coxey’s Crusade for Jobs: Unemployment in the Gilded Age. Dekalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 2016.

2. Sweeney, Michael. “’The Desire for the Sensational:’ Coxey’s Army and the Argus-eyed Demons from Hell.”Journalism History 23 (Fall 1997), 114-125.

3. Alexander, Benjamin. Coxey’s Army: Popular Protest in the Gilded Age. Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 2015.

4. Grinspan, Jon. “How a Ragtag Band of Reformers Organized the First Protest March on Washington, D.C." Smithsonian Magazine, May 1, 2014.

5. “Lookout for ‘Em Congressmen: Here’s Mr. Coxey, Coming 100,00 Strong to Do Wondrous Things.” The New York Times, January 27, 1894, 9.

6. “Coxey Is Coming.” The Washington Bee (African American newspaper), April 28, 1894, 1.

7. Bishop, Wesley. “Creating the Commonweal: Coxey’s Army of 1894, and the Path of Protest from Populism to the New Deal, 1892-1936.” Doctorate dissertation, University of Purdue, 2018.

Images:

https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/92520221/
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hec.04224

Image Sources(Click to expand)

Library of Congress

Coxey’s Army (1894) First Mass March of Protesters at Washington, D.C.