What is sort of amazing about this story, then, is the reality that theatre spaces, today something so so highbrow, could have carried such cultural weight.  They reflected a divide in the nation.

On the one hand, the Bowery represented (miners and shit).  The Astor was a break in this. 

there’s more detail here if you’d like.

So this was the story of an underclass feeling impinged upon by a new elite.  And this wasn’t only tangible and economic but also symbolic.  Ideas often fly better with celebrities.  And we had celebrities in…THE ACTING STYLES