The New York Call

Abstract

As the East's premiere socialist daily newspaper in English, The New York Call represented an important if struggling slice of a rich print culture that spread the socialist creed and sustained the faithful. This article uses the prism of The Call to consider functions of social movement media that, in contrast to mainstream media, promote collective action instead of products. It raises the question of whether the notion of a successful social-movement journal in the mass media market is oxymoronic. Besides considering The Call's contributions to the socialist movement, it analyzes the challenges the socialist daily faced in the capitalist-driven mass media market; examines the relationship between The Call and the mainstream press; and probes its relationship to the socialist movement, which it not only reflected but also shaped. The article concludes The Call provided a robust challenge to hegemony and played an important role as a forum for socialist discourse and as a record of New York's labor and socialist movements. Its inability to thrive, however, reflects divisions among socialists and labor as well as financial problems and governmental repression.