If you are reading this in your pajamas while having your first coffee of the day with your copy of one of the eight editions of The Press newspaper spread on your kitchen table, thank a newspaper carrier today.

Sept. 4 is recognized by those in the news game and others, no doubt, as National Newspaper Carrier Day, a day celebrating those who physically transport the news to your front porch, the end of your driveway or the spot designated for drop off agreed upon by you and she or he.

In the tradition of many origin stories, the event prompting the anointing of a superhero was seemingly fairly ordinary.

On Sept. 4, 1883, Barney Flaherty, 10, was hired by Benjamin H. Day, publisher of “The Sun” newspaper in New York City, N.Y., to carry and sell newspapers in the streets of the city.

According to the Museum of the City of New York, Flaherty impressed Day with his sincerity when answering an advertisement for “steady men” to apply for the job.

“The Sun” debuted on newsstands the day before, according to the Library of Congress.

Flaherty, an Irish immigrant, according to some histories of the pivotal moment, set the tone for future tweens, teens, young adults and others on their way to actualizing the American dream, including, it is worth noting in the wake of observances of Labor Day, the power of collective action by employees to bring about change.

Musical theater and movie fans may recall “Newsies” takes inspiration from the Newsboys’ Strike of 1899 against publishers William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer for how they compensated the young people they employed as newspaper carriers. The strike lasted two weeks and change happened. Critical to the agreement reached was the concession by the publishers to buy back unsold copies of the newspapers from distributors, aka the newspaper carriers.

Rutgers University’s Center for Youth Political Participation found, “Though their demands were not wholly met, their success in reaching compromise with the day’s leading news tycoons reverberates through labor history.”

Changes in child labor laws also are attributed by Rutgers researchers to that strike at the front edge of the 20th-century.

Newspaper carriers are woven into American and, for many of us, personal history.

Literally, the boy next door was our newspaper carrier in my Upper Milford Township neighborhood when I was a kid.

Also, one of my maternal aunts worked as a newspaper carrier in my mother’s hometown.

Newspaper carriers bring tomorrow’s history to our door steps and they likely are much more personable than the computer or smartphone on which your digital subscription to your newspaper of choice arrives.

Thank you, Matt, Aunt Anita and to all who physically carry the news to us. We greatly appreciate your work and are the better for it.

April Peterson

editorial assistant

East Penn Press

Salisbury Press