1 00:00:04,160 --> 00:00:07,520 Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of 2 00:00:07,520 --> 00:00:14,480 Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of 3 00:00:14,560 --> 00:00:18,520 Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all 4 00:00:18,560 --> 00:00:22,200 Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just 5 00:00:22,280 --> 00:00:28,920 Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. 6 00:00:36,800 --> 00:00:39,440 Speaker 1: Museums can teach us a lot about the darker side 7 00:00:39,440 --> 00:00:43,360 Speaker 1: of human life, from coffins and skeletons to weapons and destruction. 8 00:00:43,760 --> 00:00:47,040 Speaker 1: Museums are brimming with the ominous. But sometimes we get 9 00:00:47,040 --> 00:00:49,760 Speaker 1: so lost in far off history that we don't realize 10 00:00:49,800 --> 00:00:53,640 Speaker 1: there are nefarious tales behind the museums themselves. If we 11 00:00:53,680 --> 00:00:56,520 Speaker 1: look a little closer, we might find stories marked with 12 00:00:56,600 --> 00:00:59,880 Speaker 1: scandal and controversy. And if we look closer than that, 13 00:01:00,400 --> 00:01:04,920 Speaker 1: we might uncover long forgotten curses. In twenty eleven, United 14 00:01:04,920 --> 00:01:09,000 Speaker 1: States customs agents sorted through incoming packages. As they examined 15 00:01:09,080 --> 00:01:12,279 Speaker 1: various items, they paused at one that was particularly heavy. 16 00:01:12,640 --> 00:01:14,839 Speaker 1: The label said that it was from the United Arab 17 00:01:14,920 --> 00:01:18,160 Speaker 1: Emirates and that it contained handmade clay tiles from Turkey. 18 00:01:18,680 --> 00:01:21,840 Speaker 1: Needless to say, something felt a little off. Maybe it 19 00:01:21,920 --> 00:01:24,319 Speaker 1: was the weight of the package, or maybe it was 20 00:01:24,360 --> 00:01:28,160 Speaker 1: the recipient. The package you see was addressed to Hobby Lobby. 21 00:01:28,520 --> 00:01:31,560 Speaker 1: Hobby Lobby runs a chain of craft supply stores, and 22 00:01:31,640 --> 00:01:33,559 Speaker 1: while the agents thought that it might have made sense 23 00:01:33,560 --> 00:01:36,400 Speaker 1: for the company to order tiles, they wouldn't have expected 24 00:01:36,400 --> 00:01:40,440 Speaker 1: those tiles to be handmade from Turkey. The agents were suspicious. 25 00:01:40,720 --> 00:01:42,880 Speaker 1: They shook the package like a child would rattle and 26 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:46,880 Speaker 1: unopen Christmas present, and noticed the contents felt bulkier than 27 00:01:46,920 --> 00:01:49,920 Speaker 1: a set of tiles would. Suspicious, they sliced through the 28 00:01:49,920 --> 00:01:54,640 Speaker 1: packaging tape and looked inside. What they saw astounded them. 29 00:01:54,960 --> 00:01:58,000 Speaker 1: Over the next few days, Customs seized more packages like 30 00:01:58,040 --> 00:02:00,559 Speaker 1: this one. All of them were either address to Hobby 31 00:02:00,600 --> 00:02:04,080 Speaker 1: Lobby or the company's president, Stephen Green. None of the 32 00:02:04,080 --> 00:02:07,280 Speaker 1: packages had the right documentation, and all of them contained 33 00:02:07,280 --> 00:02:10,520 Speaker 1: things unlike any the agents had seen before. It appeared 34 00:02:10,520 --> 00:02:13,919 Speaker 1: as though Green might have been smuggling. This put him 35 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:17,720 Speaker 1: under extreme scrutiny. Smuggling is no small matter, and federal 36 00:02:17,720 --> 00:02:20,920 Speaker 1: investigators had to get involved. When they saw everything the 37 00:02:20,960 --> 00:02:24,840 Speaker 1: Customs agents had found, they were equally shocked. Something shady 38 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:28,640 Speaker 1: was indeed going on. At the same time, Green was worried. 39 00:02:28,840 --> 00:02:32,160 Speaker 1: This ordeal began right as he started planning his latest venture, 40 00:02:32,240 --> 00:02:35,040 Speaker 1: a museum all about the Bible and its history, called 41 00:02:35,280 --> 00:02:38,239 Speaker 1: creatively the Museum of the Bible. He needed to be 42 00:02:38,320 --> 00:02:41,280 Speaker 1: able to focus on that, but the investigation was large 43 00:02:41,320 --> 00:02:44,360 Speaker 1: scale and he didn't expect it to end anytime soon, 44 00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:48,000 Speaker 1: and he was right about that. About six years later, 45 00:02:48,200 --> 00:02:50,720 Speaker 1: the government found out that the goods weren't from Turkey 46 00:02:50,760 --> 00:02:54,040 Speaker 1: at all. They were from Iraq, the country nicknamed the 47 00:02:54,200 --> 00:02:57,840 Speaker 1: birthplace of the Bible. Finally, the government filed the complaint 48 00:02:57,880 --> 00:03:01,160 Speaker 1: against Stephen aptly titled the Union United States of America 49 00:03:01,280 --> 00:03:05,079 Speaker 1: versus approximately four hundred and fifty ancient canea formed tablets 50 00:03:05,120 --> 00:03:09,160 Speaker 1: and approximately three thousand ancient clay boulet. The name said 51 00:03:09,200 --> 00:03:13,200 Speaker 1: it all. Green had illegally smuggled ancient artifacts out of Iraq. 52 00:03:13,400 --> 00:03:15,920 Speaker 1: He then tried to pass off those tablets, along with 53 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:19,920 Speaker 1: other items, as standard tiles, but most likely he planned 54 00:03:19,960 --> 00:03:23,040 Speaker 1: to put them on display in his museum. It turned 55 00:03:23,040 --> 00:03:25,320 Speaker 1: out that many of the artifacts had been missing for 56 00:03:25,400 --> 00:03:29,520 Speaker 1: decades after being looted from museums and archaeological sites, and 57 00:03:29,639 --> 00:03:32,000 Speaker 1: perhaps the most significant of them all was a clay 58 00:03:32,080 --> 00:03:34,920 Speaker 1: tablet that was about three thousand, five hundred years old. 59 00:03:35,040 --> 00:03:38,640 Speaker 1: Known as the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet, it's inscribed with part 60 00:03:38,680 --> 00:03:41,440 Speaker 1: of the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is considered the oldest 61 00:03:41,480 --> 00:03:46,000 Speaker 1: literary work in human history. Archaeologists uncovered the Epic of 62 00:03:46,040 --> 00:03:49,520 Speaker 1: Gilgamesh in eighteen fifty three when they excavated the library 63 00:03:49,560 --> 00:03:53,400 Speaker 1: of an ancient Mesopotamian king. Ironically, the king had protected 64 00:03:53,440 --> 00:03:56,480 Speaker 1: those tablets with a curse on anyone who tried to 65 00:03:56,520 --> 00:04:00,040 Speaker 1: steal them. Now the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet is back with 66 00:04:00,040 --> 00:04:03,240 Speaker 1: its rightful owners. It's not clear how Green thought that 67 00:04:03,320 --> 00:04:05,600 Speaker 1: he could get away with this, but he did own 68 00:04:05,680 --> 00:04:08,400 Speaker 1: up to his mistakes, although the bad news kept coming. 69 00:04:08,560 --> 00:04:12,240 Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, experts analyzed five Dead Sea scrolls on 70 00:04:12,280 --> 00:04:15,920 Speaker 1: display at his museum and discovered that they were actually fake. 71 00:04:16,520 --> 00:04:19,080 Speaker 1: Needless to say, I think the lesson from this story 72 00:04:19,200 --> 00:04:23,000 Speaker 1: is pretty clear. Don't take history for granted, and don't 73 00:04:23,480 --> 00:04:41,359 Speaker 1: take history. Everyone called her mother ma or marm, but 74 00:04:41,560 --> 00:04:45,400 Speaker 1: Frederica Mandelbaum was always a mother second and a business 75 00:04:45,440 --> 00:04:48,960 Speaker 1: woman first. Long before she came to Manhattan, she knew 76 00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:51,600 Speaker 1: how to make a buck. She was born in eighteen 77 00:04:51,680 --> 00:04:55,480 Speaker 1: twenty seven in Germany, living a working class lifestyle until 78 00:04:55,520 --> 00:04:58,080 Speaker 1: she married her husband Wolf at the age of twenty one. 79 00:04:58,520 --> 00:05:00,919 Speaker 1: The two of them traveled around the country treside peddling 80 00:05:00,960 --> 00:05:04,360 Speaker 1: goods before emigrating to New York City in eighteen fifty. 81 00:05:05,200 --> 00:05:08,640 Speaker 1: Life in New York was hard for immigrants. In Little Germany, 82 00:05:08,920 --> 00:05:12,120 Speaker 1: Marm and Wolf were squeezed into stinking tenements where they 83 00:05:12,160 --> 00:05:15,440 Speaker 1: had no light, air, or running water. Just like back home, 84 00:05:15,640 --> 00:05:19,119 Speaker 1: Marm and Wolf were street pedlars, selling anything they could. 85 00:05:19,480 --> 00:05:22,920 Speaker 1: The Mandelbomb's neighbors, however, were not interested in buying rags 86 00:05:22,960 --> 00:05:25,560 Speaker 1: and broken clocks that were salvaged from the trash bins, 87 00:05:25,880 --> 00:05:29,880 Speaker 1: so the Mandelbombs and their four children were barely scraping by. 88 00:05:29,920 --> 00:05:32,960 Speaker 1: But Marm was a clever woman. When most people saw 89 00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:36,080 Speaker 1: the financial panic of eighteen fifty seven as a disaster, 90 00:05:36,560 --> 00:05:40,800 Speaker 1: she saw an opportunity. With businesses and banks failing and 91 00:05:40,880 --> 00:05:44,080 Speaker 1: thousands losing their jobs, children were sent out onto the 92 00:05:44,120 --> 00:05:48,680 Speaker 1: street to make money however they could. Many turned to pickpocketing, burglary, 93 00:05:48,960 --> 00:05:51,800 Speaker 1: or other petty crimes to survive. When they needed to 94 00:05:51,839 --> 00:05:54,920 Speaker 1: sell their ill gotten gains, they knew they could count 95 00:05:55,160 --> 00:05:58,680 Speaker 1: on Marm. Marm and wolf opened a dry goods store, 96 00:05:58,800 --> 00:06:02,080 Speaker 1: claiming to be simple importers. Their real business, though, was 97 00:06:02,120 --> 00:06:05,920 Speaker 1: in the back room, selling pocket watches, jewelry, fine cloth, silver, 98 00:06:06,240 --> 00:06:10,080 Speaker 1: even furniture that had wandered off from wealthy households. Business 99 00:06:10,200 --> 00:06:13,479 Speaker 1: was good. Soon they rented an entire warehouse just to 100 00:06:13,560 --> 00:06:18,200 Speaker 1: store stolen items. By all accounts, Marm's strong personality was 101 00:06:18,240 --> 00:06:22,359 Speaker 1: her greatest asset in building an illegal empire. She befriended 102 00:06:22,360 --> 00:06:25,640 Speaker 1: crooked cops and judges, setting up a system of bribes 103 00:06:25,680 --> 00:06:28,400 Speaker 1: and favors to keep her thieves out of jail. She 104 00:06:28,680 --> 00:06:33,040 Speaker 1: financed gangs of blackmailers and organized bank heists, and then 105 00:06:33,160 --> 00:06:36,560 Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy, she decided to pass her collected knowledge 106 00:06:36,560 --> 00:06:40,200 Speaker 1: along and opened her own school for crooks. At mar 107 00:06:40,320 --> 00:06:44,000 Speaker 1: Mandelbaum's Grand Street School, young men and women could learn 108 00:06:44,040 --> 00:06:47,120 Speaker 1: how to pick a pocket or case a house. Subjects 109 00:06:47,160 --> 00:06:52,120 Speaker 1: included misdirection, safe cracking, blackmail, and burglary, and she especially 110 00:06:52,200 --> 00:06:54,600 Speaker 1: liked to train young women from the working class who 111 00:06:54,600 --> 00:06:57,679 Speaker 1: had few other opportunities to make money. Her best students 112 00:06:57,720 --> 00:07:00,240 Speaker 1: went on to work for her, running keep hart of 113 00:07:00,279 --> 00:07:04,640 Speaker 1: her operation. As Marm Mandelbaum's empire grew, she became a 114 00:07:04,680 --> 00:07:07,880 Speaker 1: fixture of New York society. Her life of crime was 115 00:07:07,960 --> 00:07:10,720 Speaker 1: an open secret. Both of these things made it that 116 00:07:10,880 --> 00:07:13,440 Speaker 1: much harder to stop her though. Not only did Marm 117 00:07:13,520 --> 00:07:16,360 Speaker 1: have an ear of judges and politicians, but she also 118 00:07:16,440 --> 00:07:19,360 Speaker 1: kept a fun handy for bailing out her loyal followers. 119 00:07:19,720 --> 00:07:22,880 Speaker 1: She kept cab drivers on retainer for quick getaways, and 120 00:07:22,960 --> 00:07:26,680 Speaker 1: worked with jewelers to alter stolen pieces. Tammany Hall, the 121 00:07:26,720 --> 00:07:30,480 Speaker 1: political machine that controlled New York, recognized her influence and 122 00:07:30,560 --> 00:07:33,160 Speaker 1: agreed to protect her so long as she delivered Jewish 123 00:07:33,240 --> 00:07:36,880 Speaker 1: and working class voters, which was ironic considering she couldn't 124 00:07:36,920 --> 00:07:40,880 Speaker 1: even vote herself. Marm had carefully crafted a loyal network 125 00:07:40,920 --> 00:07:44,000 Speaker 1: that would never give her up. Too many influential people 126 00:07:44,040 --> 00:07:47,040 Speaker 1: depended on her. Marm also took care never to commit 127 00:07:47,080 --> 00:07:50,440 Speaker 1: any crimes directly. She never picked a pocket or cracked 128 00:07:50,440 --> 00:07:52,920 Speaker 1: a safe. If she was found in possession of any 129 00:07:52,960 --> 00:07:56,400 Speaker 1: stolen goods, she could claim innocence she didn't steal them 130 00:07:56,400 --> 00:07:59,560 Speaker 1: after all, So for decades, Marm's empire was allowed to 131 00:07:59,560 --> 00:08:03,160 Speaker 1: operate in the shadows, safe from the law. By the 132 00:08:03,160 --> 00:08:07,119 Speaker 1: eighteen eighties, Marm's criminal empire was regularly trading over five 133 00:08:07,160 --> 00:08:10,800 Speaker 1: million dollars in stolen goods. City officials, corrupt or not, 134 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:13,920 Speaker 1: couldn't look away any longer, so in eighteen eighty four 135 00:08:13,960 --> 00:08:17,400 Speaker 1: they hired the pin Carton Detective Agency to take her down. 136 00:08:17,960 --> 00:08:21,680 Speaker 1: Silk was ultimately her achilles heel. She knowingly bought stolen 137 00:08:21,760 --> 00:08:24,840 Speaker 1: silk from a pin Carton agent posing as a thief. 138 00:08:25,160 --> 00:08:27,880 Speaker 1: What she did not know was that this silk was marked. 139 00:08:28,080 --> 00:08:30,240 Speaker 1: When police found the marked silk in a raid on 140 00:08:30,320 --> 00:08:33,000 Speaker 1: her warehouse, it was all over for Marm. She'd been 141 00:08:33,040 --> 00:08:38,040 Speaker 1: caught intentionally trafficking in stolen goods and was arrested. Despite 142 00:08:38,080 --> 00:08:41,560 Speaker 1: constant monitoring by the police and the Pinkertons, Marm still 143 00:08:41,559 --> 00:08:44,000 Speaker 1: had some tricks up her sleeve. Late one night, after 144 00:08:44,040 --> 00:08:46,480 Speaker 1: Marm had been released on bail, she slipped out of 145 00:08:46,480 --> 00:08:49,400 Speaker 1: her apartment in New York. She fled to Canada carrying 146 00:08:49,400 --> 00:08:52,240 Speaker 1: nearly a million dollars in cash and diamonds, and she 147 00:08:52,320 --> 00:08:54,679 Speaker 1: lived out the rest of her days a free woman. 148 00:08:55,320 --> 00:08:58,200 Speaker 1: When Marm Mandelbaum died in eighteen ninety four, her body 149 00:08:58,280 --> 00:09:02,280 Speaker 1: was returned to New York to be buried. Attended her funeral, and, 150 00:09:02,320 --> 00:09:06,040 Speaker 1: according to reports, over a dozen mourners had their pockets, 151 00:09:06,080 --> 00:09:14,040 Speaker 1: picked just the way that marm would have wanted. I 152 00:09:14,080 --> 00:09:17,599 Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. 153 00:09:17,920 --> 00:09:21,040 Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about 154 00:09:21,040 --> 00:09:25,600 Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show 155 00:09:25,840 --> 00:09:29,080 Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how 156 00:09:29,160 --> 00:09:32,760 Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, 157 00:09:33,000 --> 00:09:36,640 Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and 158 00:09:36,679 --> 00:09:39,280 Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore 159 00:09:39,559 --> 00:09:45,079 Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.