|
One sign of the fascination with Chicago in the late nineteenth century was the dozens of
dime (many actually five-cent) novels set in the city. These were mainly produced in
"fiction factories" in lower Manhattan by authors and editors who churned cheap novels out by the
thousands. Their plots were even more sensational and preposterous than books like
Daniel Trentworthy, full of disguises and mayhem, sudden plot turns and stilted language,
but always with a tidy resolution. One dime novel publisher, Ornum & Company,
issued a fire history in 1871, titled The Ruined City; or, the Horrors of Chicago.
The Fire Bugs of Chicago is not expressly about the great conflagration, but suggests that
the "rascally band" of malefactors in the title started the fire, "and the story of Mrs. O'Leary
cow only circulated as a blind."
|
Stage, Story, and Song 