15 Minutes of Infamy

This is the story of a story of a girl, who drowned in a river and shocked the whole world. And while she looked so sad in photographs, Poe absolutely loved her-- and so she became the inspiration behind one of his most famous stories.  In 1840, Mary Cecelia Rogers was a 21-year-old beauty who worked in the tobacco shop of John Anderson on a street in New York known as Broadway. Her home was a boarding house run by her widowed mother, just a short walk from her place of employment, and Anderson had hired Mary because he believed that the best way to pull in male customers from the street was to have a beautiful female face behind the counter. His philosophy worked. Business increased so much that the shop was continually filled with young men, most of whom were eager to introduce themselves to the young woman known simply as the Broadway Cigar Girl. However, Mary had two serious suitors with honorable intentions. This didn't dissuade the more persistent potential suitors, so, as a ...