The restitution of almost unrestricted freedom of the press following Porfirio Diaz’s resignation in 1911 unleashed a campaign between January and October 1912 in which editors of the old regime steered a negative campaign against the newly elected President Francisco Madero (1911-1913). In October 1912, the Madero government proposed a press law that empowered the government to fine and arrest editors and reporters and force them to correct the news that was not accurate. The proposed press law also targeted newspaper vendors for the dissemination of alarming headlines in the streets. Newspaper vendors, who made up the vital final link in the chain of media production and distribution of newspapers, faced intimidation, railway and car accidents, and death in the streets.

How did newspaper vendors use newspapers and the streets to communicate and cope with grief in revolutionary Mexico City? Following the murder of journalists Humberto Strauss and Ignacio Herrerías on August 11, 1912, newspaper vendors and journalists formed mutual aid associations to address the precarious conditions of media workers. The associations collected funds for funerals and organized funeral trains through the same streets in which journalists wrote and newspaper vendors sold papers. In this talk, I will examine the emergence of newspaper vendors‘ individual and collective actions in the press and the streets and analyze their role in the shaping a public sphere of mourning. This public sphere of mourning emerged before the ratification of the 1917 Mexican Constitution, which granted news vendors protection from incarceration for reporting events or selling papers.