This 1905 photo was recently sent to us by Matt Kindred. The lives of the Roe family of Iowa were about to change dramatically, as the following year, the father would land a good-paying job on a major project: the building of the Panama Canal. The little girl holding the flowers was Matt’s grandmother, and the boy in the dark suit was her brother Otis Edward Roe. Young Master Roe would have a new job, too: selling issues of The Saturday Evening Post to workers at the Panama Canal.

While researching family history, Matt discovered a 1972 Saturday Evening Post story about former newsboys. His Great Uncle, Otis Edward Roe, had sent in a photo from his newsboy days in Panama. The canal was not a project taking a few weeks or months, but years, and Otis and his siblings spent a portion of their childhood in Panama. The photo shows young Roe standing on the edge of the Gaillard Cut, “which sliced through the Continental Divide and was the most hazardous phase of the canal project.” The 1972 issue reported the Roe had “a brisk business, selling the Post to those workers who were so far from their homeland for so long.”

“It appears in the above photo young Roe is holding this April 3, 1909 issue of the Post. Post staffer Ron Dowdy points out that a five-cent issue in Panama “was not an inexpensive purchase for the American worker. The common laborer was paid 90 cents per day. The workers worked 9 hour days. So the magazine would be worth a half an hour’s wage.” The fact that you could get three meals a day for about 30 cents adds perspective. So does the fact that in the days before radio, the Post with its many fiction stories, serials and welcome news from the States would have been one of the few sources of entertainment and distraction, so it was well worth that hard-earned nickel!

Like his father, Otis Roe had worked for a railroad, and at the time of the ’72 article, he was retired and living in Tallahassee, Florida. He recalled that among his Post customers was the man in charge of the canal construction, Lieutenant Colonel George Washington Goethals. President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Goethals chief engineer of the Panama Canal in 1907. Construction was completed in 1914.

Young Roe wasn’t the only Post presence at the building of the great canal. This 1908 photo from Our Teams, a magazine for newsboys, shows a boy making collections at a pay-car. A large posted sign reads “The Saturday Evening Post—5 Cents a Copy.” “One thousand copies weekly are sold this way in the Canal Zone,” Our Teams reported, proudly boasting “Our Boys Are Everywhere.”

This photo appeared in a 1911 booklet the Post did for newsboys.

The Our Teams magazine, as it was called, contained selling tips and success stories to inspire the boys to sell enough issues to win prizes, like those below:

“Say, do you want one of those $1.25 Official, American League, Cork-Center Baseballs?” asks the May 1911 issue of Our Teams.

“And say, do you want one of those Regulation Finger-Gloves?” Just “make an average increase of thirty copies in your Saturday Eventing Post sales…” Incentives like these encouraged news boys to become top salesmen.

By the 1920s, The Saturday Evening Post was America’s top magazine, with a circulation in the millions. How did it get that way? In the days long before television, let alone the internet, reading was a popular pastime. With the most popular authors of the day, and the finest illustrators, it wasn’t unusual for an issue to run to 150 pages or more. That was a lot of bang for the buck. Or, the nickel, actually—the magazine was five cents. The January 9, 1926 issue (left) boasted fiction by such writers as F. Scott Fitzgerald and a Norman Rockwell cover and … 256 pages!

There was another reason for the success of America’s favorite magazine: a marketing strategy that recruited boys (and girls) to sell the Post one issue and one nickel at a time.

In 1971, Michigan attorney David G. Heilbrun sent a letter to the Post with a picture of himself as a Post News Boy. The cover of the issue young David is holding shows a soldier greeting his sweetheart and is from May 30, 1942.

“For about 2 years, aged 10-12,” David wrote, “I was fortunate to establish a route of about 25 regular customers.” Experience as a Post carrier was said to instill a work ethic and business experience. It must have worked: “I’ve sometimes wondered if this was such a good idea since I’ve felt invigorating being overworked ever since,” Heilbrun noted.

Former Post Boys include TV personalities Hugh Downs and Charles Osgood, department store founder Stanley Marcus, and oilman J. Paul Getty.

If you were a Post News Boy (or Girl), or one of your parents or a grandparent was, send Diana an e-mailwith their story. A photo of them at the time and/or a recent photo would be appreciated. Maybe we’ll feature you on our website!

Meet some former news boys and girls: Remember Post News Boys and Girls and Post Boys and Girls-74 years later