Making a Living from a Manhattan Newspaper Stand in 1918

My uncle's future mother- and father-in-law ran a Manhattan newspaper stand during the second decade of the 1900s. In the 1910 US Census, Lena Kaplan Katz (1879-1963) gave her occupation as "newspaper keeper." In his 1918 draft registration card, her husband Litman Leon Katz (1881-1944) said he was self-employed, running a news stand at 53 East 30th Street. That address was just a few steps from a busy commercial district of New York City, half a mile south of Grand Central Terminal. As shown in the New York Public Library photo above, news stands also sold magazines, candy, gum, and other convenience items. News stands were everywhere--on city streets, near or in subway stations, inside hotels, at bus and railroad terminals. This was because the Big Apple was awash with morning, afternoon, evening, and weekly newspapers, many published in English and some in the various languages of those who lived and worked in the city. Papers were the definitive source of local, national, and…