Gotham_ A History of New York City to 1898 - Edwin G. Burrows [793]
Western adventures, another wildly popular genre, were also churned out en masse in the metropolis. The West had long been promoted by city-based land reformers as a rural Utopia of small republican farm communities. The dime novel West—peopled by savages, scouts, desperadoes, and dance hall madams—was a more individualistic place, where white men could make a new start, a world of gambling, gold, and guns where—unlike the city—masters of property and capital were not in control. Out west unfettered heroes like “Ralph Rockwood, the Reckless Ranger” or “Deadwood Dick” and even “Calamity Jane” triumphed over greedy villains—often bankers. The most triumphant of all was Buffalo Bill.
In 1869 the publishers of the New York Weekly signed Astor Place riot veteran Edward Z. C. Judson—better known as Ned Buntline—to write a series of sensational westerns. On a trip to interview Frank North, a well-known frontier scout, Buntline ran across William S. Cody, whom he considered a more promising candidate, gave him a more crowd-pleasing cognomen, and began writing. In December Buffalo Bill, the King of Border Men appeared in New York, the first of 550 dime novels about Cody to follow.
By the time Cody came to New York City (in 1872) as Bennett Junior’s guest, Buntline had turned out three sequels and produced a play. When Cody took in the performance at Niblo’s Gardens—and received an ovation—he realized the commercial possibilities of becoming the author of his own melodramas, rather than a star in someone else’s. Jettisoning Buntline, whose bombastic style had become a liability, he took on as a press agent Major John M. Burke, one of the earliest geniuses of publicity.
For the 1873-74 season, Cody joined forces with Wild Bill Hickok—another metropolitan media star, who had shot to fame after publication of an article in Harper’s Monthly—persuading him to come to New York and play himself. Cody sent precise instructions: “You will land in New York at the 42nd St. depot. To avoid getting lost in the big city, take a cab at the depot and you will be driven to the hotel in a few minutes. Pay the cabman two dollars. These New York cabmen are regular holdup men, and your driver may want to charge you more, but do not pay more than two dollars under any circumstances.” The cabbie charged him five, and Hickok refused stoutly. When the cabbie announced he would “take the rest out of your hide,” the long-haired Hickok flattened him with a roundhouse swing. Despite this impressive entrance, Hickok couldn’t make the jump to performer for the metropolitan masses. He found “making a show of yourself” ridiculous and embarrassing and finally headed back west. Cody, however, was making a fortune with his growing repertory of western dramas, ground out by Bowery hacks on a piecework basis, and the Buffalo Bill Combination launched an eleven-season run.
UNDERWORLD
Like their detective hero Old Sleuth, dime novel aficionados found plenty of criminality close to home. The laboring quarters were the primary stomping grounds for the city’s gangs—though “gangsters” was increasingly the more appropriate term—and host to a newly professionalized criminal fraternity that grew up on the underside of working-class life.
The old Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits, for all the mayhem they inflicted (mainly on each other), had not been really criminal organizations. They were, rather, part of the rowdy republican universe; the same skilled craftsmen and laboring men often turned up as volunteer firemen or militia units serving semicivic functions.
Now, however, following the lead of antebellum river pirates, many gangs preyed professionally on citizens and businesses. They broke into houses in daylight, beat and robbed strangers by night, levied tribute on merchants and factory owners, stole from warehouses and railroad yards. The piers remained a favorite thieving ground, with their piles of unprotected goods heaped up for easy plunder. An estimated million dollars’ worth of merchandise was stolen annually in the late 1860s