Pop Culture Text - St. Dominic High School

10 With Amusement for Allguished common worker, had ascended “from low beginnings to make aname known throughout the republic—simply by leaping waterfalls,” as thehistorian Paul Johnson has written. He had demonstrated “that anyonecould be famous. Democracy, commerce, and new kinds of popular imaginationwere rising all at once.” The decade after Patch’s death would provideample evidence of the rapidly expanding influence of popular culture. 23