“Fleas at the Metropolitan Opera!” Scandal and Gossip in Victorian New York
METROPOLITAN CHAPTER of THE VICTORIAN SOCIETY IN AMERICA
Please Join Us This Evening!
LECTURE: Tuesday, April 10
“Fleas at the Metropolitan Opera!” Scandal and Gossip in Victorian New York
Mark Caldwell, professor of English, Fordham University and author of A Short
History of Rudeness: Manners, Morals, and Misbehavior in America and New York
Night: The Mystique and Its History
Contemporary New Yorkers tend to think of shameless gossip columns and Page Six reports of celebrity misdeeds and humiliations as a modern invention. But in fact New York’s fascination with scandal dates back at least to 1835, when a fledgling mass-market daily newspaper, The Sun, dispatched a reporter to prowl the streets, spy on dubious doings after dark, and tattle in the next morning’s paper. Mark Caldwell’s talk outlines the beginnings of Manhattan’s love affair with scandal—from the Sun, to the short-lived but hair-raising 1840’s-era underground weeklies (with names like The Whip and The Rake), to the 1890s, when Colonel William d’Alton Mann created the astonishing Town Topics, which reported on the lurid misdeeds of rich and famous New Yorkers.
All lectures are at the Donnell Library Auditorium, 20 W. 53rd Street, New York City
Admission is FREE; no reservations required