The Flag of Our Union

This Boston penny weekly serialized sensational fiction for working-class readers at a penny per issue. The Flag of Our Union featured melodramatic stories of crime, empire, and social upheaval alongside advertisements and serialized novels—here, "Ruggler of Rankin: The Grandee's Plot," a tale of colonial intrigue. Such cheap serials flooded Britain and America throughout the nineteenth century, offering rapid-fire narrative thrills to audiences. Penny dreadfuls and bloods pioneered the commercial serialization, vivid illustration, and episodic suspense that would eventually define the modern comic book. Their readers demanded action, sensation, and the promise of resolution in the next week's installment.