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• Exhibition Home
• Finding Meaning in the Shadows
• Apprehending Darkness in the Shadows
• Redistributing Wealth
• Selling Sex
• Placing Bets
• Faking It
• Swindling

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W. H. Leach. Unparalleled Success of Fashion and Famine. New York: W. H. Tinson, [1854]. (Gift of Michael Zinman)

In addition to being a contributor to Godey’s Lady’s Book before launching her own magazine, Ann S. Stephens is credited with creating the dime novel genre – cheap, mass-market books that often featured sensational stories. This broadside advertises her first novel, Fashion and Famine, which contrasts the lifestyles enjoyed by the rich at resorts such as Saratoga with the gritty slum life of the urban poor, including the prevalence of prostitution, petty crime, and murder. A contemporary critic described the popular work as a “highly-wrought story, -- with commonplace materials under the stage-light.”