Frontier Fantasies:
Imagining the American West in the Dime Novel

Enormously popular and critically maligned, the dime novel was one of the first forms of mass culture in the United States. The Western adventure story dominated the dime novel industry in the 1860s and 1870s. Tales of the frontier, wherever it was – upstate New York, the Great Plains, or the California gold country – helped to define a mythical American identity. Come see these “Books for the Million!” that justified Western expansion with mail-order myths of violent transgressions, passionate romances, and thrilling rescues.

You may download a small, 8x10 version of the poster: Dime Novels (2.5 MB)

The exhibition was curated by Laura Braunstein and will be on display in the Class of 1965 Galleries August 15 through October 14, 2008.

• Recent Exhibitions
• Collection Highlights
• Adventures in Collecting by Philip Cronenwett