Just found these links to articles on New York newspapers in the 1850s: Anti-French sentiments! Racial strife! Bloody murder! Pop stars! Colorful suicides! All via The New York Herald in 1850 and The New York Times in 1852.
My how times change.
How about poor Laura Addison, the actress who died at 26, only to have the Times say in its obituary that “Her acting, both in England and in this country, always appeared to us forced and unnatural. She was decidedly overrated.”
I hope she came back and haunted them!