It took Menken only five months to put herself in the national spotlight after moving to New York City. A virtual unknown in September 1859, by February 1860 newspaper readers from the East Coast to San Francisco knew her name. Scandal, the quickest route to fame or infamy, put Menken in the public eye. The term “scandal” implies a dissolution of public and private boundaries; it exposes a person's private actions to be judged on the public stage. Given all we know about Victorian emphasis on respectability, one would think that a major scandal should have destroyed Menken, but it did not. In many ways the scandal made Menken: It initially put her name before the public, won her contracts, and gave her an excuse to “share” her personal story, creating the illusion of intimacy necessary for celebrity. Menken also put some of the tricks she learned in Cincinnati to good use, such as publishing poetry that “revealed” her true self and suggested that she was the victim of male infidelity and nasty journalism. Under the guise of defense, she was able to speak directly to the public.