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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, welcome

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Speaker 1: back to the show. My name is Matt, my name

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Speaker 1: is all they call me Ben. This is our super

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Speaker 1: producer Paul, Mission Control decand who is with us as

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Speaker 1: always backstage? You are you, You are here and that

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Speaker 1: makes this stuff they don't want you to know live

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Speaker 1: at the Theater eight St. Mark's. Oh yeah, and it

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Speaker 1: is a very special day for me personally. Just really

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Speaker 1: quickly before we get into this, gentleman got this seventeen

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Speaker 1: years ago today, a little over that. I met this

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Speaker 1: girl at the International Thespian Conference and uh we we

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Speaker 1: hit it off. We were introduced that day, and then

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Speaker 1: ten years ago today I got to become her husband,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of cool. And she's here and I

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Speaker 1: never get to do the show in front of her.

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Speaker 1: So happy anniversary, Diana, Happy anniversary. Start the night off

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Speaker 1: on a heartwarming note. And this this is a special day.

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Speaker 1: This is a special place with so much history. So

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Speaker 1: we we three, he said, we've got to have a

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Speaker 1: special guest, and luckily we found the perfect one. We'd

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Speaker 1: like to introduce you. I think we all know and

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Speaker 1: love her, the co host of the award winning podcast

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Speaker 1: Stuff You Missed in History Class, Holly Fry. Holy hello,

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Speaker 1: you guys are way too sweet, and if you would

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Speaker 1: like to just hang out at my house and do

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Speaker 1: this every morning when I wake up, that would be um. So,

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Speaker 1: as Matt kind of did in an orner way earlier,

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Speaker 1: we did get to see The Kitchen already, Um, which

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Speaker 1: is Warner Brothers new film, and as I think Scary explained,

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Speaker 1: it follows these amazing women on their incredible trajectory through

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Speaker 1: like taking over the crime industry of Hell's Kitchen. Um. This,

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Speaker 1: in turn no spoilers because we don't want to give

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Speaker 1: any of them away, but because it is a story

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Speaker 1: about women in the crime syndicate, it inspired this podcast,

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Speaker 1: which is about another story of a similar incredibly badass

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Speaker 1: woman who worked her way to the top of the

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Speaker 1: organized crime of New York and other places. As you'll hear,

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Speaker 1: America's first mob boss was a woman, you guys, specifically

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Speaker 1: a woman known as Frederica marm Vandelbaum. She was born

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Speaker 1: Frederica Henriette Augusta Wisner in eighteen eighteen in a Prussian

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Speaker 1: town called Castle, which is now a city in modern

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Speaker 1: day Germany. That's right. And we don't know a whole

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Speaker 1: lot about Marm's backstory other than um, you know, she

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Speaker 1: her family was Jewish, and in eight teen forty eight

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Speaker 1: she married a guy named Wolf Israel Mandelbaum and the

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Speaker 1: Wolf Mandelbaum and uh, she she and he were traveling peddlers,

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Speaker 1: and they were subjected to some pretty serious persecution and

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Speaker 1: anti Semitism throughout their lives when they were there. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Actually traveling peddler was one of the few jobs that

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Speaker 1: Jews were allowed to hold at the time. Um. And

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Speaker 1: in addition to this discrimination, the Mandelbaums were also really

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Speaker 1: driven to a scary place, which is the brink of starvation.

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Speaker 1: When the potato blight of the nineteen or the eighteen

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Speaker 1: forties hit Europe, we talked about it a lot in

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Speaker 1: context of Ireland, but many countries were deeply impacted. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And so there was also this political instability that developed

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Speaker 1: in Germany in the late eighteen forties when they had

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Speaker 1: their own series of revolutions which failed, and these combined

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Speaker 1: factors led them to the decision that they had to

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Speaker 1: flee Germany, and they left in eighteen fifty. So Wolf

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Speaker 1: left in the steamship the Baltimore and arrived in New

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Speaker 1: York in July of that same year, and Frederika and

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Speaker 1: their infant daughter Berta pronunciation Guru right here. Berta soon

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Speaker 1: followed and they arrived in September via the Eerie. And

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Speaker 1: Frederika at the time was twenty three years old, which

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Speaker 1: is bonkers to me. I don't know why, because I'm

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Speaker 1: thirty five, and I don't feel like I've accomplished nearly

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Speaker 1: as much as as we're going to describe this woman

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Speaker 1: having accomplished at that point in her life. But the

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Speaker 1: Mandel Bombs traveled in steerage um where more than a

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Speaker 1: hundred immigrants were packed into these incredibly tight quarters in

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Speaker 1: one of three of the ship's lower decks um and

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Speaker 1: there was a row of tiny hay lined bunks that

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Speaker 1: were stacked against the wall um and passengers were provided

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Speaker 1: with what was called an immigrants kit, which was a

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Speaker 1: horse blanket, a beat up tin plate, a knife, a

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Speaker 1: fork in a spoon, and seasickness was rampant. It was

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Speaker 1: a constant problem and the remedies that folks use things

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Speaker 1: like lime drops, and yet it's true raw onions were

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Speaker 1: totally useless. So personal space and hygiene were entirely non existent,

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Speaker 1: and diseases ran rampant on the ship, and many did

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Speaker 1: not survive this absurdly perilous journey. Yeah, I feel like

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Speaker 1: we should consider like the supplies they were given were

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Speaker 1: not nice. So next time you're on your international flight

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Speaker 1: and you want to complain about your thin blanket, just

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Speaker 1: trust that you're getting luxury. By comparison, the happy Titanic

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Speaker 1: moments you see in steerage totally total fantasy and especially

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Speaker 1: difficult for Marm because Marm was almost six ft tall.

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Speaker 1: She was around two fifty pounds. She was an imposing

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Speaker 1: figure who stuck out in a crowd, and she was

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Speaker 1: she was easy to find, So imagine being almost six

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Speaker 1: ft tall and stuck in Asmal said, these tiny hay

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Speaker 1: line buildings, this serious, seriously dangerous, torturous situation. Uh could

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Speaker 1: prove fatal to a lot of people. And we will

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Speaker 1: never know exactly what Marm and her daughter endured during

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Speaker 1: this journey, but one thing is for certain. It was

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Speaker 1: not pretty. It was the opposite. It was ugly and

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Speaker 1: the crowding did not stop at steerage. This is this

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Speaker 1: is one of the worst parts. So they get out

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Speaker 1: of the boat and they think, you know, who knows

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Speaker 1: what They're dreaming of a big, beautiful city, green vistas

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Speaker 1: and so on. But the problem is, by eighteen fifty

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Speaker 1: this city, New York was the largest and busiest port

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Speaker 1: in the United States. So Frederica, her husband Wolf and

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Speaker 1: Berta were just three roughly two million people who would

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Speaker 1: immigrate to the US via New York during the eighteen fifties,

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Speaker 1: chasing this dream of a better life in a better country,

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Speaker 1: and it was a dream that was tough to catch,

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Speaker 1: especially early on. The Mantal Bombs started their lives in

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Speaker 1: New York in the lower east side of Manhattan, in

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Speaker 1: an area known as Klein deutch Land or Little Germany,

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Speaker 1: which were I believe we're in right now. We're at

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Speaker 1: least extremely close to it at this moment um. At

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Speaker 1: the time, Little Germany was made up of around four

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Speaker 1: hundred blocks, and Tompkins Square Park, which is right down

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Speaker 1: the road, was at the very center of it. And

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Speaker 1: then over the years it expanded pretty significantly. Um and

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Speaker 1: at one point it was I believe. Well, we'll get

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Speaker 1: into it a little later. But like a lot of

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Speaker 1: the German families who moved into the city around that time,

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Speaker 1: the mantel Bombs began their life in New York living

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Speaker 1: with with family members or friends who would put them

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Speaker 1: up while they searched for their own place to start

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Speaker 1: a new life. Yeah, and eventually the mandement was found

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Speaker 1: an apartment, their own place on the eighth Street, and

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Speaker 1: it was a stifling, windowless room and an absurdly rundown

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Speaker 1: tenement building. There was no heat, there was no indoor plumbing,

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Speaker 1: The bathroom consisted of a wooden outhouse in the alley,

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Speaker 1: and they had to carry their own water from like

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Speaker 1: hand pumps, um, and that was the only way they

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Speaker 1: could get access to fresh water. And those handpumps were

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Speaker 1: out in the sidewalk. So probably a lot like your

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Speaker 1: first apartment. Um, that's what I'm guessing. And the thing

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Speaker 1: is life for most immigrants. As much as they thought

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Speaker 1: this was going to be way easier, it was extraordinarily difficult.

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Speaker 1: The mantel Bounds actually lost their first child. That was

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Speaker 1: not an uncommon occurrence for families, but even so, with

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Speaker 1: that tragedy in their history, they still ended up kind

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Speaker 1: of doing better than most. Um, they had a room

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Speaker 1: to themselves, for example, which seemed incredibly luxurious, and a

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Speaker 1: lot of immigrants were actually living transient lives. They were

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Speaker 1: sleeping wherever they could, where they could put down a bedroll,

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Speaker 1: where someone would let them, they would just if they

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Speaker 1: could find a dry place, they would make that their

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Speaker 1: bed for the night. Um, they carried literally everything they

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Speaker 1: had with them, So I mean, I couldn't even carry

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Speaker 1: my Star Wars figures. But you've been to the tour

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Speaker 1: of Ellis Island where you see the luggage room where

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Speaker 1: they confiscate your luggage and you get it back. We're

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Speaker 1: talking like trunks, were talking like these massive packs that

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Speaker 1: they would carry everything they had, and they would absolutely

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Speaker 1: lose a lot of these things throughout the course of

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Speaker 1: this experience where talking about they would And part of

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Speaker 1: that was that they were really victimized by slum lords

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Speaker 1: who took advantage of people in this desperate situation, who

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Speaker 1: would you know, charge them way too much for not

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Speaker 1: permanent living quarters really tight uh, and often there were

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Speaker 1: dozens of people crammed in one room. So then if

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Speaker 1: they did not pay, they lost those possessions because those

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Speaker 1: slum lords would kick them right out and they did

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Speaker 1: not get to take their things with them, so at

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Speaker 1: that point they would just be turned out on the street.

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Speaker 1: They had no money, they had no possessions, just the

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Speaker 1: clothes on their backs, and they were trying to start

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Speaker 1: a new life. So survival very quickly became the name

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Speaker 1: of the game. And the system was, of course corrupt,

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Speaker 1: and the norm for immigrants was discrimination and cruelty. We've

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Speaker 1: kind of hit that point repeatedly, and so understandably, Mandelbaum,

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Speaker 1: like a lot of immigrants, just decided that she had

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Speaker 1: to make her own rules and figure out a way

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Speaker 1: to survive and support her family, and that meant turning

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Speaker 1: to crime. And as it turns out, she was fun

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Speaker 1: ominally good, as she had a gift. No smoke on

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Speaker 1: that one. So mandel Baum began to lay the groundwork

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Speaker 1: for her life as a career criminal while she was

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Speaker 1: working as a street peddler. Since she and Wolf could

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Speaker 1: not afford a wagon, much less a storefront, they set

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Speaker 1: up shop on the streets of Little Germany. They were

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Speaker 1: walking in the midst of the crowds, selling whatever they

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Speaker 1: could find that they thought anybody might remotely want broken watches,

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Speaker 1: scraps of fabric, not like whole pieces of clothing, like

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Speaker 1: scraps of fabric, pieces of ropes, stuff like that. And

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Speaker 1: the kinds of things they were selling were, as you

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Speaker 1: could tell, not in particularly high demand, so tries they

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Speaker 1: might working all day well into the night. They could

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Speaker 1: barely afford to feed their children. Something had to be done.

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Speaker 1: But it was during these early days pedaling on the

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Speaker 1: streets of Little Germany that Fredericka Mandelbaum began making these

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Speaker 1: contact that would prove to be super important in establishing

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Speaker 1: her ultimately her criminal enterprise. So at the time, there

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Speaker 1: were children that would just roam the streets. A lot

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Speaker 1: of times, they were homeless, a lot of times they

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Speaker 1: were part of families that were transient as well, but

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Speaker 1: they would sell these odds and ends, much like that

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Speaker 1: peddlar's life U and their parents, if they had them,

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Speaker 1: would encourage them to make a little more money, to steal,

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Speaker 1: to do petty crimes, to become pickpockets and thieves. And

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Speaker 1: nandel Baum saw this and she had like kind of

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Speaker 1: a lightbulb moment where she was like, Okay, I'm going

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Speaker 1: to capitalize on this. So she started literally, like Oliver

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Speaker 1: Twist Fagan style, enlisting these street urchin children into this

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Speaker 1: grassroots criminal empire. Um. She also met thieves and other

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Speaker 1: petty crows, so you know, like weren't children, um. And

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Speaker 1: she started to look into how to unload the stolen

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Speaker 1: goods that they had acquired, and this led her to

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Speaker 1: an Aha moment where she realized, uh, hey, there is

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Speaker 1: just as much, if not more money to make moving

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Speaker 1: stolen goods than actually doing the stealing, which is pretty enterprising.

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Speaker 1: And boy, oh boy, did she do just that. She

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Speaker 1: found her niche and she was spectacular at it. So

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Speaker 1: for mandel Baum and her family, things really took a

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Speaker 1: turn for the better. This happened, ironically during a time

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Speaker 1: that was very difficult for most people because it was

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Speaker 1: the Panic of eighteen seven. Yeah, not the most encouraging

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Speaker 1: way to describe an event in history, right. So at

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Speaker 1: the time Panic of the Panic of eighteen fifty seven,

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Speaker 1: we as a country, the United States, had more or

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Speaker 1: less overplayed our financial hand. We expanded domestic investment and

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Speaker 1: business at a rate that lagged behind the already failing

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Speaker 1: international economy. And it was a bubble that let me

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Speaker 1: do a sound effect. It was a bubble that pops spectacularly.

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Speaker 1: Oh that the two spectacular. Yeah, we'll edit that part.

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Speaker 1: So so it's serious, though I don't want to make

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Speaker 1: light of this. Multitudes of banks closed, hundreds of businesses

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Speaker 1: failed overnight, and that meant that tens of thousands of

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Speaker 1: people woke up one morning without a job and they

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Speaker 1: had to figure out something. This was oddly advantageous for

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Speaker 1: people who were already living on the other side of

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Speaker 1: the law. They were familiar with this sort of informal system.

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Speaker 1: The folks with legitimate jobs had to learn this stuff

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Speaker 1: very quickly, and they had to go to the streets

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Speaker 1: doing the same stuff that mandel Bomb started out doing. However,

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Speaker 1: she was in a much better position. Oh, how the

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Speaker 1: tables have turned. That's right. So Mandel Bomb had already

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Speaker 1: established herself as this uh shrewd trader, and she was

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Speaker 1: a ruthless business person, and she was just in the

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Speaker 1: perfect position to take full advantage of all the woes

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Speaker 1: that the country and specifically New York City was going

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Speaker 1: through at the time. And according to her contemporaries, um

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Speaker 1: when she was making a transaction, right, she would never

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Speaker 1: buy anything for more than half of what it was worth,

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Speaker 1: and she would never sell it for less than twice

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Speaker 1: of what she paid. That's pretty good if you can

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Speaker 1: actually get away with that over the course of a career,

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Speaker 1: right um, And she became known as one of the

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Speaker 1: best fences in the entire city of New York. She

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Speaker 1: was just purchasing stolen stuff from all the criminals that

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Speaker 1: are gathering things for her and then selling it to

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Speaker 1: legitimate buyers. Now that can be anyone from just uh,

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Speaker 1: let's say Holly wanted to get a Grido something or other,

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Speaker 1: she had to have one to a business, a a

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Speaker 1: company that has a storefront that wants to have goods

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Speaker 1: to sell their right. And if you think about this

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Speaker 1: as a proprietor in these down times, in a down

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Speaker 1: economy like that, the only way to actually keep your

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Speaker 1: business alive is to offer the lowest possible prices to

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Speaker 1: customers that you possibly can write. Then you also have

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Speaker 1: to charge enough to make a profit on whatever good

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Speaker 1: you're selling to them. And that meant that the stolen

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Speaker 1: goods from Marm's enterprise made business sense. And it makes

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Speaker 1: you wonder just how many of Marms fell off the wagon.

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Speaker 1: Bits of loot actually ended up in legitimate storefronts in

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Speaker 1: New York City at the time. Yeah, or how much

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Speaker 1: of that kind of thing is actually still happening today

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Speaker 1: right now? I mean think about it. Don't think about it.

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Speaker 1: Let's not so that was way way back in the

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Speaker 1: mid nineteenth century. Uh, not now, not, not now at all. Right,

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Speaker 1: We're good, everything's good. Um. Marm's network perfectly was straddling

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Speaker 1: the worlds of both this this crime, the world of

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Speaker 1: crime in the world of commerce, and she was connecting

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Speaker 1: the numerous criminal sellers to the legitimate and very eager purchasers.

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Speaker 1: And everyone in the city at that time is looking

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Speaker 1: for a bargain and everything they're doing, and with Marm's

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Speaker 1: business model, everybody was winning. Yeah, if you wanted to

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Speaker 1: sell something to someone, he was not going to ask

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Speaker 1: a lot of questions. You went to Marm. And if

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Speaker 1: you wanted to buy something on the cheap, nick lesslee cheap,

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Speaker 1: questionably cheap, you went to Marms. So soon every street

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Speaker 1: level criminal had either met or worked with Frederica mar Mandelbaum.

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Speaker 1: But pretty quickly her network climbed out from just like

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Speaker 1: the depths of street level criminals. Uh, and she started

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Speaker 1: establishing relationships with people like lawyers, police officials, prosecutors, anyone

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Speaker 1: that wanted to have a relationship that had something to

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Speaker 1: gain from knowing Marms. She was a regular at this

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Speaker 1: place called the Eighth Street Thieves Exchange, which was one

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Speaker 1: of New York's most active black markets. I heard it

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Speaker 1: described as like a Walmart of thievery kind of and

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Speaker 1: um wards, by the way, at the time where these

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Speaker 1: numbered voting districts in New York that was divided up

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Speaker 1: into and that will come up a little bit later.

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Speaker 1: Um So, she was beloved as well in the Jewish community,

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Speaker 1: and she often used her synagogue, which was she was

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Speaker 1: very active in as a networking site. And even the

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Speaker 1: corrupt politicians of Tammany Hall, the political machine, were huge

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Speaker 1: fans of marm because they knew that if they played

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Speaker 1: ball with her that she would help them secure the

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Speaker 1: Jewish vote in the ward which she was becoming particularly

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Speaker 1: um influential within. So there were folks like Tammany Hall's

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Speaker 1: boss Tweed and the particularly corrupt mayor Fernando Woods at

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Speaker 1: the time who were regular guests at her house at

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Speaker 1: these like Suarez that she would throw and they absolutely

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Speaker 1: were doing business with her, no question about it. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So while she's rubbing shoulders with all of these big

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Speaker 1: names in the city, she's also she and all the

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Speaker 1: money in her enterprise. They're financing some of the city's

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Speaker 1: most spectacular crimes, like the Manhattan Savings bank robbery, which

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Speaker 1: could be an episode all its own. It's crazy. But

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Speaker 1: can you give us a like a little quick and

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Speaker 1: dirty about this? Definitely so in It was eighteen seventy

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Speaker 1: eight when this occurred, and this robbery was and still

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Speaker 1: is to this day in twenty nineteen, the largest bank

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Speaker 1: robbery of all time in terms of real money that

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Speaker 1: was stolen in uh and at that time, in seventy eight,

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Speaker 1: over three million dollars in cash, money and securities were stolen.

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Speaker 1: Think about that, in eighteen seventy eight dollars. WHOA. So

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Speaker 1: here's the big question. We've kind of gone over all

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Speaker 1: this stuff about Fredrika Mandelbaum, but what really makes her different?

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Speaker 1: How could she operate a criminal enterprise at this scale

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Speaker 1: for such a long time. You know what I love

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Speaker 1: about that is that's that's a great question and it

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Speaker 1: actually does have an answer, which doesn't always happen. We're

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Speaker 1: talking about history, right, So so marm succeeded in a

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Speaker 1: in an industry that also had other players. Right, there

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Speaker 1: were rival fence operations. In addition to fighting against these groups.

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Speaker 1: She raised four children, right, and she was caring for

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Speaker 1: wolf her sick husband, and Wolfe suffered from consumption. He

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Speaker 1: was also, sadly to say, not respected by either the

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Speaker 1: legal operators like the cops or the illegal people. They

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Speaker 1: all thought that this guy was a joke. They actually

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Speaker 1: called him and this was a very bad word at

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Speaker 1: the time. They referred to him as a nonentity ouch.

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Speaker 1: I know, it's brutal, right, And and so she was

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Speaker 1: taking care of her family pretty much on her own.

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Speaker 1: She was also running a legitimate dry goods store. And

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Speaker 1: I want to I want to be honest with everyone.

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Speaker 1: I want to clear this up really quickly, because when

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Speaker 1: we started working on this, I wasn't sure what dry

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Speaker 1: goods meant. I thought it was like a bean store, like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: no question about I honestly had no idea. Either that's

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Speaker 1: such a bless your heart moment, thank you a resident haberdasher,

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Speaker 1: or like in a fashion play, tell us what dry

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Speaker 1: dry goods were things that were non non food necessities,

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Speaker 1: so it could be clothes, hats, tablewares, etcetera. Gloves maybe

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Speaker 1: life needs yeah, and so not beans. I want to

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Speaker 1: really stress just store. I got it, guys, I learned

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Speaker 1: so marm Also, while she was doing all this, while

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Speaker 1: she's fighting rivals, raising her family and running actually legitimate business,

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00:20:15,160 --> 00:20:19,479
Speaker 1: she built the city's largest fencing operation, ran it for

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Speaker 1: more than two decades and still in history and the

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Speaker 1: history of this town, she is the most successful fence

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Speaker 1: even in But there's another thing that made her different.

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Speaker 1: We've been throwing around the name marm Right, it's her nickname,

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Speaker 1: it's her street name. Where did it come from? Though? Okay,

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Speaker 1: so this is a fun story. Here's the deal. So

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Speaker 1: she was a ruthless criminal masterbind but she was also

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Speaker 1: a very nurturing lady. Um. I mean, I think there's

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Speaker 1: some evidence of that in the fact that she took

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Speaker 1: care of a family while running two other businesses, one

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Speaker 1: legitimate and onnot um. She actually took it upon herself

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Speaker 1: to mentor young criminals. I mean, that's sweet, um, do

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Speaker 1: you think about it? She taught them their trade. So

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Speaker 1: she called this is the sweetest thing. She called her

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Speaker 1: a group of criminals, her little chicks and they called

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Speaker 1: her Morm in return, so it was a very nurturing

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Speaker 1: and loving creation. Yeah yeah, yeah. Beginning around the time

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Speaker 1: of the Panic of eighteen fifty seven, she started just

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Speaker 1: taking various ne'er do wells under her wings. She was

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Speaker 1: seeing lots of people who needed help and she was like,

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Speaker 1: come to me, I will I will teach you. And

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Speaker 1: although she helped criminals of all types pursue careers in

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Speaker 1: crime and learn their trade and get really good at it,

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Speaker 1: she was really really, particularly softhearted and fond of working

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Speaker 1: with young women because she felt like it saved them

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Speaker 1: from a life as a housekeeper um or probably other options,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of a framing spin, you know what

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Speaker 1: I mean, because we're helping her, right, I mean, I

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Speaker 1: also don't want to clean a house, but um you know,

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Speaker 1: pick pocketing sounds better. But uh so. The chief though

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Speaker 1: in her affection, even though she was very nurturing with

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Speaker 1: her little chicks, really what it all came down to

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Speaker 1: for her were her three surviving children. So Annie, Julius,

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Speaker 1: and Sarah were the ones that lived after their first

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Speaker 1: child had passed, and marm was so dedicated to them

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Speaker 1: that even in the middle of like an incredibly important

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Speaker 1: deal or a meeting. If one of her kids was six,

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Speaker 1: she was like, I'm sorry, this deal can't happen now,

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00:22:26,080 --> 00:22:28,520
Speaker 1: I'm out um or even if they just needed her,

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00:22:28,760 --> 00:22:31,040
Speaker 1: she would completely call off whatever she was doing and

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Speaker 1: run to their side. So things were really looking up

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00:22:33,560 --> 00:22:36,000
Speaker 1: for the Mandel Bombs at this point. They absolutely were

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Speaker 1: moving on up out of the tenements. And now Marm's

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Speaker 1: home was full of dry goods, but they were fancy

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Speaker 1: dry goods. They were things like furniture art. Art is

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Speaker 1: the fanciest of dry goods if you ask me, silverware,

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Speaker 1: draperies uh stolen from some of the best homes and

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Speaker 1: businesses and mansions in New York City. By eighteen sixty four,

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Speaker 1: she bought a three story building um at seventy nine

401
00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:05,159
Speaker 1: Clinton Street on the corner of Rivington and Clinton, and

402
00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:07,880
Speaker 1: the family had their dry goods store still at the time,

403
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:09,920
Speaker 1: run by Wolf and the kids. It was an adorable

404
00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:13,280
Speaker 1: family affair, but the real action was happening in the

405
00:23:13,320 --> 00:23:18,439
Speaker 1: back rooms where Marm headed up this incredibly lucrative fencing operation.

406
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Speaker 1: This isn't fencing. Like fencing, it's like moving stolen goods.

407
00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:25,720
Speaker 1: I don't think any I was just clarifying she might

408
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Speaker 1: have sold fences. You don't know how. There was somebody

409
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Speaker 1: here this whole time, going how do you make money

410
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Speaker 1: fencing them and take their wallet? Just think we're all

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00:23:36,720 --> 00:23:39,520
Speaker 1: on the same page, Like I see fences everywhere around town.

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Speaker 1: You know what's true. And she was always one step

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Speaker 1: ahead of the authorities in the event that there was

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00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:47,399
Speaker 1: a raid or something. She even had this thing. It

415
00:23:47,440 --> 00:23:49,800
Speaker 1: was like a chimney with a fake back that hit

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Speaker 1: a dumb waiter. So if the cops were coming, they

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00:23:52,359 --> 00:23:54,320
Speaker 1: were knocking on the door, she could like load this

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00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:56,520
Speaker 1: dumb waiter up in the fake chimney with all the

419
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Speaker 1: stolen goods she had, and lower it down underground and

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Speaker 1: and be like, what, I'm operating the dry goods exclusively.

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00:24:03,800 --> 00:24:06,680
Speaker 1: I'm a legitimate business person. Leave me the hell. Are

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00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:09,280
Speaker 1: you a chimney inspector, sir, dot be on your way

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00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:17,000
Speaker 1: your credentials. No, it's true. Um, so she was pretty crafty.

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Speaker 1: There's there's a fantastic book by an author named Jade

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Speaker 1: north Conway, and in this book he delineates three three

426
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:31,640
Speaker 1: principal reasons that marm Mandelbaum was a cut above all

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Speaker 1: of the other fencing operations, and and the I think

428
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:38,280
Speaker 1: they're pretty legitimate, to be honest. Well, the first one is,

429
00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:41,480
Speaker 1: remember she and her family they're immigrants from Germany, right,

430
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:45,520
Speaker 1: they speak German, but she learned to speak English extremely

431
00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:48,240
Speaker 1: well and pretty quickly, and she could function as an

432
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:52,680
Speaker 1: interpreter between any other immigrants who also spoke German and English.

433
00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:55,360
Speaker 1: Now this is huge because in eighteen seventy and there's

434
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:58,840
Speaker 1: an estimated thirty percent of all of New York City's

435
00:24:58,840 --> 00:25:03,600
Speaker 1: inhabitants were either German immigrants or their first generation children.

436
00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:06,200
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of people that spoke both

437
00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:09,840
Speaker 1: English and German or just English or just German. Right,

438
00:25:10,280 --> 00:25:12,359
Speaker 1: So a lot of her clientele would need the service,

439
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:15,240
Speaker 1: and it probably also helped put them at ease when

440
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:18,200
Speaker 1: she's having a transaction with them if she can be

441
00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:21,800
Speaker 1: functioned as a translator. And and this is just my speculation,

442
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:24,680
Speaker 1: but I think it was probably advantageous that she could

443
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:28,520
Speaker 1: understand English. So well, if let's say she's having some

444
00:25:28,600 --> 00:25:32,040
Speaker 1: kind of trade deal with someone who speaks English who

445
00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:34,840
Speaker 1: maybe doesn't know who she is and thinks that, oh well,

446
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:38,520
Speaker 1: she probably only speaks German, she can understand everything to

447
00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:41,719
Speaker 1: that person or that person in there, uh there, others

448
00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:44,120
Speaker 1: are saying absolutely gay in the upper hand or even

449
00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:46,840
Speaker 1: like overhere deals and you know all that kind of stuff,

450
00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:49,600
Speaker 1: and like totally figure out how to kind of capitalize

451
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 1: on that language thing for sure, and feign ignorance to right, like, oh,

452
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:56,720
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about. Literally yeah, oh,

453
00:25:56,840 --> 00:25:58,920
Speaker 1: the power to be the only person in the room

454
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:02,720
Speaker 1: who literally knows, let's go everything that's going on. Um. Second,

455
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:04,720
Speaker 1: she had this other skill set, which is sort of

456
00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:09,800
Speaker 1: like a different kind of bilinguality. Right, she knew, uh,

457
00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:12,880
Speaker 1: the crime industry, but she also was running a legitimate

458
00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:16,600
Speaker 1: dry goods store, so she knew the products that were

459
00:26:16,600 --> 00:26:18,639
Speaker 1: available and when things came in off the streets. She

460
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:21,879
Speaker 1: knew what fabric was worth, what jewelry was worth, and

461
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:25,000
Speaker 1: she knew the markets for those products. So she had

462
00:26:25,040 --> 00:26:28,359
Speaker 1: a very intimate understanding of both their prices and the

463
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:30,439
Speaker 1: level of demand based on the people that have been

464
00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:33,399
Speaker 1: coming to her on the side with potential deals or needs.

465
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:37,359
Speaker 1: And this allowed her to make lightning quick calculations about

466
00:26:37,359 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 1: the value of stolen goods when they were offered to her.

467
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 1: And third, and perhaps this is the most important part

468
00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:49,000
Speaker 1: of her operation. Everyone from the judges to the to

469
00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 1: the street thieves knew that she would never ask any questions.

470
00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:56,119
Speaker 1: You just show up with eighty seven. Hats fine, you

471
00:26:56,160 --> 00:26:59,280
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Let's talk turkey. She dealt in

472
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:05,639
Speaker 1: plunder of all kinds, silk, lace, diamonds, carriages, horses, gold, silver,

473
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:08,199
Speaker 1: of course, bonds and more. And she could, like you

474
00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:11,119
Speaker 1: were saying, Holly, she could just look at something a

475
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:14,320
Speaker 1: thief it brought her, and then lightning quickly, she would

476
00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 1: know automatically how much she would pay for it, and

477
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:20,080
Speaker 1: she would already know where she would sell it, which

478
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:23,040
Speaker 1: was brilliant. In fact, she was so she was so

479
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:26,879
Speaker 1: efficient at this. When the Chicago Fire of eighteen seventy

480
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:31,200
Speaker 1: one occurred, looting was rampant in Chicago, was pandemonium, was chaotic,

481
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:34,280
Speaker 1: and a lot of the stuff that got looted from

482
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:37,520
Speaker 1: a different city ended up with her. It went through

483
00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:41,920
Speaker 1: her hands at some point. And although her although her

484
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:45,040
Speaker 1: pursuit of this stuff was sophisticated and very well thought out,

485
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:49,359
Speaker 1: the actual process was really simple. It's sort of like

486
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:52,560
Speaker 1: you said earlier, Matt. She let's let's say, for instance,

487
00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:57,399
Speaker 1: let's go with eight seven stolen fedoras. Sure, so somebody

488
00:27:57,440 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: comes up eight seven stolen fedoras. Let's say that's like

489
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:03,320
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars worth of hats. It's like a math problem.

490
00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:05,359
Speaker 1: We'll just we don't know how much of those actually

491
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:11,119
Speaker 1: made bows. So she would say, okay, this is a

492
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:14,359
Speaker 1: hundred dollars. If I were actually paying for this legitimately,

493
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:17,159
Speaker 1: I will give you twenty dollars. That's one fifth of it.

494
00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:19,840
Speaker 1: And the thief would say, okay, yeah, that's fine, I'll

495
00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:21,919
Speaker 1: just go get some more hats tomorrow, and then she

496
00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 1: would resell those goods for sixty dollars. And the police

497
00:28:26,560 --> 00:28:30,360
Speaker 1: had action as well in this process. So the victims

498
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:33,359
Speaker 1: of theft might approach the police and say, hey, somebody

499
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:36,720
Speaker 1: stole all my weird hats or whatever, and they would say, well,

500
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:39,800
Speaker 1: if you make it worth our while, we'll do our

501
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:42,640
Speaker 1: best to find them. And sometimes they would do too,

502
00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 1: is just go back to marm and like buy another hat,

503
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 1: like an equivalent hat, and then say hey, here's your hat.

504
00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 1: And it was like, yeah, it was absolute subterfuge because

505
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 1: they were getting paid under the table. So from their opinion,

506
00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:58,320
Speaker 1: every from their perspective, rather, everybody is winning except you know,

507
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:03,680
Speaker 1: the victims, he said, the person whose hats those were originally. Um.

508
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: What's interesting about marm is that even though she became

509
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 1: very successful and could have easily moved uptown too much

510
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: fancier digs, she chose to stay in Little Germany. However,

511
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 1: her empire expanded all over the place. UM. It moved

512
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 1: throughout New York, uh, into all the boroughs beyond the boroughs.

513
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:25,120
Speaker 1: Eventually she became an established force in Trenton and Newark. UH.

514
00:29:25,320 --> 00:29:30,520
Speaker 1: She courted wealthy, legitimate clients as well as Jersey criminals. Um.

515
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:33,720
Speaker 1: And then what's what's interesting and not really surprising is

516
00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:37,760
Speaker 1: that her husband both died in eighteen seventy five. But

517
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:40,479
Speaker 1: because she had kind of been running everything, she was

518
00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:43,800
Speaker 1: able to, you know, pretty quickly move on. She didn't

519
00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:45,480
Speaker 1: have to pause and grieve and wonder how she was

520
00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:47,720
Speaker 1: going to make ends meet. She was like, Okay, well,

521
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:50,840
Speaker 1: let's keep the business running. And by the eighteen eighties

522
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:55,600
Speaker 1: she owned several tenement buildings and uh she also owned warehouses.

523
00:29:55,640 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 1: And she used those warehouses to store all of this merchandise,

524
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:02,920
Speaker 1: all of the stolen goods that she was handling. But

525
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:06,960
Speaker 1: what's really cool cool being a relative term is that. Um,

526
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:09,360
Speaker 1: this is not all she built, and I love this

527
00:30:09,400 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 1: part of the story. So mandel Bomb allegedly uh founded

528
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:17,240
Speaker 1: an actual school to train up young criminals around eighteen seventy.

529
00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 1: She's true. She she bought a building on the corner

530
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 1: of Clinton and Grant and transformed into kind of like

531
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:25,680
Speaker 1: an X Men School for the gifted or whatever, a

532
00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 1: Hogwarts type situation. But instead of teaching you know, young

533
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:32,040
Speaker 1: mutants or wizards or whatever to harness their super superpowers,

534
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:35,360
Speaker 1: mandel Bomb's Grand Street School started off with the finer

535
00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:39,440
Speaker 1: points of pick pickpocketry, pocket, here we go, I'm like

536
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:43,080
Speaker 1: in that, or things like misdirection, um and yeah, young

537
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:45,680
Speaker 1: men and women alike, which is a big deal. Um.

538
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:49,040
Speaker 1: Were who showed promise with the basics were then graduated

539
00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:53,040
Speaker 1: on to more advanced skills, stuff like safe cracking or

540
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:57,080
Speaker 1: grand larceny or blackmail or con artist. Try like you do.

541
00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:01,360
Speaker 1: And um, the professors at this Grand Street School, we're

542
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:03,719
Speaker 1: the best criminals in the city because they were already

543
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:07,040
Speaker 1: part of Mandel Bomb's network of crooks. So students who

544
00:31:07,080 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 1: excelled at this school were brought into mandel Bomb's inner circle. Yeah,

545
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:16,360
Speaker 1: definitely a kind of promotion, right something, I still want

546
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 1: to get my PhD and pickpocketology. Excellent use of my time,

547
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:27,280
Speaker 1: your PhD. P. So you know, allegedly this uh, this

548
00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 1: school was right next to the police headquarters. Again, that's allegedly.

549
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:34,960
Speaker 1: I love it. I love her so much. That plays

550
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 1: into the story because the thing about bribery and corruption

551
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:40,400
Speaker 1: is that there is a threshold. People will look the

552
00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:43,280
Speaker 1: other way for some stuff. But if we get to egregious,

553
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:46,320
Speaker 1: if we get to blatant, then there's a police chief

554
00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 1: who needs to get reelected, so needs a scapegoat. And

555
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:53,400
Speaker 1: although details on this details on the school or a

556
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:56,240
Speaker 1: little bit sketchy at this point, we know that it

557
00:31:56,320 --> 00:32:00,560
Speaker 1: did eventually close when Mandelbaum found out at one of

558
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:04,520
Speaker 1: the students was the child of a police official. Uh,

559
00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 1: this kid was enrolled. And picture mandel Bomb, you know,

560
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:09,880
Speaker 1: just wiping her for it a little bit and thinking

561
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 1: the heat's getting close, you know. So, so she didn't

562
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:17,160
Speaker 1: want to risk the school being exposed. And part of

563
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 1: it was probably because she had this loyalty to her

564
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:24,080
Speaker 1: little chicks too. So it operated for about six years

565
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:27,479
Speaker 1: and it generated, as you said, no, some of the

566
00:32:27,520 --> 00:32:32,840
Speaker 1: most gifted criminals in New York which makes them, by default,

567
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:35,680
Speaker 1: some of the most gifted criminals in the country at

568
00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:40,000
Speaker 1: the time. Okay, so we've we've established here that Fredrika

569
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:42,600
Speaker 1: mar Mandel Bomb was a very important adult in the

570
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:44,840
Speaker 1: lives of a whole bunch of kids in New York

571
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 1: City and young adults. And to some, you know, she

572
00:32:48,960 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 1: was the employer, the person that you take your goods

573
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:52,440
Speaker 1: tod and you're gonna get a little bit, you're gonna

574
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:54,880
Speaker 1: get paid a little bit. To others, she's the headmaster

575
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 1: at the school where you're going every day. And to

576
00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:00,920
Speaker 1: a lot of them, she was also ma, like we've

577
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:03,720
Speaker 1: kind of discussed earlier, and we actually have a quote

578
00:33:03,720 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 1: here from mar Mandelbaum. Oh yeah, she's pretty blunt and

579
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:12,320
Speaker 1: explaining why they gave her this nickname, she says, I

580
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 1: am Ma because I give them what a mother cannot

581
00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:20,000
Speaker 1: sometimes give money and horses and diamonds, and I don't know,

582
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:22,840
Speaker 1: I don't know how you guys screw up, but I

583
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 1: had I had a childhood lacking and at least diamonds

584
00:33:25,760 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 1: and horses. You never even had like horseback riding lessons

585
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:30,440
Speaker 1: or like wrote a pony. But she's giving them their

586
00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:36,440
Speaker 1: own horse diamond encrusted. The money actually was coated with diamonds.

587
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 1: It was just like Christmas at my house. So we've

588
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:43,560
Speaker 1: we've talked about some of those professors. They were at

589
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:45,800
Speaker 1: the school. They were some of the best criminals in

590
00:33:45,840 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 1: all New York City. A lot of her proteges ended

591
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 1: up becoming the next generation of best criminals. So we've

592
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 1: got a few of those here that will will go over.

593
00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:57,720
Speaker 1: The first one is Sophie Lions and again at a

594
00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:01,040
Speaker 1: very young age, she started out working with mar Mandel

595
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:03,480
Speaker 1: Beelm bringing things to her and we actually have a

596
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 1: quote from Sophie that illustrates the way she felt about Marm.

597
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:10,319
Speaker 1: She said, quote, I was not quite six years old

598
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:13,399
Speaker 1: when I stole my first pocketbook. That's crazy. I mean,

599
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:16,440
Speaker 1: you gotta start um early. Uh. I was very happy

600
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 1: because I was petted and rewarded. My wretched stepmother patted

601
00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:23,319
Speaker 1: my curly head, gave me a bag of candy and

602
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:28,160
Speaker 1: said I was a good girl. Right. Okay, So after

603
00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:32,240
Speaker 1: years and years of stealing and conning, Sophie Lyons really

604
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 1: did become one of the most notorious thieves in all

605
00:34:34,520 --> 00:34:37,840
Speaker 1: of New York City, and she also became extremely notorious

606
00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 1: as a confidence woman, and she was considered by Marm

607
00:34:43,120 --> 00:34:45,759
Speaker 1: to be one of her closest allies. Right. But, as

608
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:50,160
Speaker 1: you might have guessed from the Wretched stepmother line, Lions

609
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 1: eventually turned on Mandelbaum and totally threw her under the bus.

610
00:34:53,680 --> 00:34:56,200
Speaker 1: She actually reade a tell all book called Why Crime

611
00:34:56,280 --> 00:35:00,839
Speaker 1: Doesn't Pay Now. Yeah, um Now. An other one of

612
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:03,920
Speaker 1: the protegees who was also very close with Sophie Lyons

613
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:06,240
Speaker 1: was a woman named do we decide it was Lena?

614
00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:13,080
Speaker 1: I think it's Lena, Lana Lana klein Schmidt and um again,

615
00:35:13,160 --> 00:35:17,520
Speaker 1: she's another very prominent criminal that came up under Marm's tutelage.

616
00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:21,160
Speaker 1: And she actually moved to Hackensack, New Jersey, and she

617
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:24,919
Speaker 1: was posing as the wealthy widow of this South South

618
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:28,840
Speaker 1: American mining tycoon. And she started doing the same things

619
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:32,600
Speaker 1: that Marm was doing, where she's holding these big parties

620
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 1: for important officials, only this time it's over in Jersey.

621
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:38,759
Speaker 1: And uh. She actually got in trouble because she was

622
00:35:38,800 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 1: wearing a ring. That's how she got caught. She was

623
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 1: wearing a ring that was stolen that was recognized by

624
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:45,319
Speaker 1: one of the important folks at her house. It was

625
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:48,360
Speaker 1: business model that Marm was establishing. This is like she

626
00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:51,799
Speaker 1: was franchise. Yeah. I like the idea that Lena was

627
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:55,400
Speaker 1: like the original faker of being the prince from Africa

628
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:57,840
Speaker 1: that might need like and was getting confidence of people

629
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:00,960
Speaker 1: that way. And these are us. These are just a

630
00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:03,640
Speaker 1: few of the associates. There were others that are very

631
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 1: well known in crime history today, people like Little Annie

632
00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:11,600
Speaker 1: Riley Ellen Clegg or Margaret Brown who went by the

633
00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:16,080
Speaker 1: street name Old Mother Hubbard. Yes. Then we also had

634
00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:20,680
Speaker 1: a guy named Herman Stout Stout Stout Stout, and he

635
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:23,839
Speaker 1: was the only one Marm trusted. Uh. Stoud was mount

636
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:26,560
Speaker 1: of bombs, a most trusted associate and was always by

637
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:28,520
Speaker 1: her side. He literally is the one who did all

638
00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:30,719
Speaker 1: the heavy lifting and when they did deals, he would

639
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:33,240
Speaker 1: tote all of the goods to one of her many

640
00:36:33,280 --> 00:36:36,880
Speaker 1: warehouses across town. And she loved him over all of

641
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 1: her associates for sure. Yeah. She referred to him at

642
00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:43,560
Speaker 1: different times as her son, especially when they were talking

643
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:54,360
Speaker 1: to the police. Spoiler alert, she doesn't really get away eventually,

644
00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 1: despite all of her precautionary measures. Uh, there's a plot

645
00:36:58,080 --> 00:37:01,360
Speaker 1: twist in New York. Knew of shoals are elected and

646
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:05,120
Speaker 1: they're actually not corrupt. It's weird. It's like a Shamalan twist,

647
00:37:05,200 --> 00:37:08,440
Speaker 1: you know. Damn Yeah. And so they said, all right,

648
00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:12,200
Speaker 1: we're gonna bring this this whole operation down, and um,

649
00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:14,719
Speaker 1: the District Attorney's office was in the midst of a

650
00:37:14,800 --> 00:37:18,359
Speaker 1: cold war with the corrupt police force with boss politics.

651
00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:21,880
Speaker 1: The new mayor, a guy named Edward Cooper, wanted to

652
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:25,440
Speaker 1: reform the city was very vocal about it, and it

653
00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:28,960
Speaker 1: turned out that many people in this fair metropolis agreed.

654
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:31,520
Speaker 1: They were like, I would be nice if my stuff

655
00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:34,640
Speaker 1: is stolen to at least get it back, you know exactly.

656
00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:37,160
Speaker 1: But the problem is a domino effect ensued with that,

657
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:39,959
Speaker 1: at least for marm and in her criminal enterprise, because

658
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:44,520
Speaker 1: without the support of these politicians, she couldn't effectively bribe

659
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:47,680
Speaker 1: the officials that she needed to, and without those bribes

660
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:50,040
Speaker 1: greasing all the wheels to make stuff happen and to

661
00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:52,880
Speaker 1: give her some cover, she couldn't operate out in the

662
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 1: open anymore. Yeah. And what's more, the situation worse since

663
00:37:56,719 --> 00:38:00,680
Speaker 1: because she could also no longer protect her criminal old network,

664
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:04,560
Speaker 1: the city's worth of little chicks. They were once grateful

665
00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:08,760
Speaker 1: for patronage, and now they began flipping, snitching, testifying against

666
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 1: her in court. The tide, in short, was turning the

667
00:38:12,239 --> 00:38:15,920
Speaker 1: d A. A guy named Peter Olney hires the Pinkerton

668
00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:20,480
Speaker 1: Detective Agency to take Marm's operation down once and for all.

669
00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:26,040
Speaker 1: So members of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, which again has

670
00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 1: its own whole, very rich story UM and still exists

671
00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:32,960
Speaker 1: today in a certain form, Um was a private entity,

672
00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 1: which in some ways kind of prevented it from being

673
00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:39,080
Speaker 1: quite so open to the corruption that many public services

674
00:38:39,080 --> 00:38:42,120
Speaker 1: were having issues with UM, and they did manage to

675
00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:44,680
Speaker 1: bring her reign in New York to an end. So

676
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:46,759
Speaker 1: their plan was super simple. This is the thing, like

677
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:49,520
Speaker 1: the criminal master find always gets taken down by just

678
00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 1: the stupidest, easiest thing. They got a bolt of silk,

679
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:55,680
Speaker 1: they tagged it so they knew that one was the

680
00:38:55,719 --> 00:38:58,560
Speaker 1: stolen one, and then they just waited for Marm to

681
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:01,400
Speaker 1: buy it, which she of course did so that she

682
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:04,680
Speaker 1: was caught red handed and she went to trial. She

683
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:07,440
Speaker 1: was released on bail. This was largely thanks to the

684
00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:10,520
Speaker 1: work of how and Humble law firm. She kept them

685
00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:13,640
Speaker 1: on a five thousand dollar a year retainer. Yeah, they

686
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:16,000
Speaker 1: were like the They were like the salt goodman of

687
00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:18,920
Speaker 1: their day. Right, this very breaking bad? It was a

688
00:39:18,960 --> 00:39:24,839
Speaker 1: better call? How and hummele I would actually watch that show. Um.

689
00:39:24,880 --> 00:39:28,680
Speaker 1: And then, in a this rare and sort of delightfully

690
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:32,280
Speaker 1: pearl clutching statement, very out of character that she made

691
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:37,399
Speaker 1: to the public, Mom vehemently professed her innocence. Oh yes,

692
00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:42,280
Speaker 1: oh this is great. I keep a dry goods store

693
00:39:42,320 --> 00:39:45,560
Speaker 1: and have for it twenty years past. I buy and

694
00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 1: sell dry goods as other dry goods people do. Good.

695
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 1: I have never knowingly bought stolen goods, and neither did

696
00:39:55,080 --> 00:39:59,560
Speaker 1: my son Julius. I have never stolen anything in my life,

697
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:03,320
Speaker 1: which probably true. I feel that these charges are brought

698
00:40:03,320 --> 00:40:07,800
Speaker 1: against me in spite I have never bribed the police

699
00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:12,600
Speaker 1: nor had their protection. I never needed their protection because

700
00:40:12,719 --> 00:40:16,279
Speaker 1: I and my son are innocent of these charges. So

701
00:40:16,719 --> 00:40:19,640
Speaker 1: help me, God, it's going to be an amazing juxtaposition

702
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:22,759
Speaker 1: to another statement she makes a little later in the episode. Yeah.

703
00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:26,000
Speaker 1: In short, marm won Best Dramatic Performance in a non

704
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:29,560
Speaker 1: acting role. But it's really important that we haven't really

705
00:40:29,560 --> 00:40:31,799
Speaker 1: mentioned this specifically, But like her whole like stroke of

706
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:34,680
Speaker 1: genius was that she never really handled the stolen goods.

707
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:37,120
Speaker 1: She just had people do it for her. So she

708
00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:39,719
Speaker 1: probably maybe even like was drinking her own kool aid

709
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:42,279
Speaker 1: and believed that she actually wasn't a criminal, that she

710
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 1: was just a proprietor was like, you know, facilitating things.

711
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:49,440
Speaker 1: You know, I'm helping the community, helping the community exactly.

712
00:40:49,520 --> 00:40:51,840
Speaker 1: She actually was kind of, Yeah, no one wants to

713
00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:55,560
Speaker 1: be a housekeeper, right right, certainly not me. Um. I

714
00:40:55,600 --> 00:40:57,839
Speaker 1: did have that job once, but that's another story. So

715
00:40:58,360 --> 00:41:00,319
Speaker 1: rather than surrender in the midst of all of this,

716
00:41:00,840 --> 00:41:03,279
Speaker 1: she decided that she would run, and she escaped north

717
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:07,000
Speaker 1: to Canada, and she established herself with over one million

718
00:41:07,040 --> 00:41:11,120
Speaker 1: dollars worth of stolen diamonds and cold hardcash. Slight backtrack.

719
00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 1: It's an amazing story how she actually accomplished this. She

720
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:17,239
Speaker 1: Um was under house arressed essentially, or she you know,

721
00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:20,239
Speaker 1: posted that bail that we talked about, and she had

722
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:23,040
Speaker 1: a housekeeper that she had impersonated her by dressing in

723
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:25,680
Speaker 1: her classic outfit that she wore, which kind of was

724
00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 1: like a Queen Victoria kind of situation with like a

725
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:30,920
Speaker 1: feathered hat and like a veil. So she was able

726
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:33,719
Speaker 1: to make trips to her lawyer's office while the Pickerton's

727
00:41:33,760 --> 00:41:36,640
Speaker 1: were surveilling her, and she went into the lawyer and

728
00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:39,799
Speaker 1: then the housekeeper came out, and so they tracked the

729
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:43,439
Speaker 1: housekeeper and then Morm made that Canadian get away. Yeah,

730
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:47,000
Speaker 1: I made a run for the border. Um. So there

731
00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:52,160
Speaker 1: in Canada, they stayed purposely at second rate in conspicuous places.

732
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 1: They went to a little hotel near the Grand Trunk

733
00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:58,400
Speaker 1: Railway station in Hamilton, Canada, and they just wanted to

734
00:41:58,440 --> 00:41:59,960
Speaker 1: stay on the deal. They just tried to keep a

735
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:04,400
Speaker 1: low profile. But then on December nine, four, Hamilton's police

736
00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:08,880
Speaker 1: and detectives arrested Marm and her two associates, Julius her

737
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:12,000
Speaker 1: Son and Herman as they were sitting down for breakfast.

738
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:16,799
Speaker 1: So they were having omelets and handcuffs um. And naturally

739
00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:20,319
Speaker 1: Marm attempted to bribe the police because that's that's her

740
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:23,600
Speaker 1: jam who worked before. Why would we not do it again?

741
00:42:23,680 --> 00:42:26,879
Speaker 1: But Canadian police they don't play. They were not having this,

742
00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:31,240
Speaker 1: the incorruptible Canadians, It's true. And so Marm was arrested

743
00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:33,880
Speaker 1: yet again in Canada for a possession of four thousand

744
00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 1: dollars worth of stolen diamonds. But yeah, I don't know, like,

745
00:42:37,600 --> 00:42:40,000
Speaker 1: what would that translate to in today's money, four thousand

746
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:41,680
Speaker 1: dollars in diamonds it was like a million bucks. I

747
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:44,960
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm not imagining. I'm not a human. Yeah,

748
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:46,400
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, I guess it would be about a

749
00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:49,200
Speaker 1: fistful of diamonds. I think we should agree that loose

750
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:53,600
Speaker 1: diamonds are just inherently a sketchy thing. It's also absurdly baller.

751
00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:55,640
Speaker 1: If you're just dealing in loose diamonds, you just have

752
00:42:55,719 --> 00:42:59,600
Speaker 1: them lying around. There's a Jeffrey Epstein thing there. They're

753
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:06,280
Speaker 1: gonna let's yet. So yeah, she's arrested again. But luckily

754
00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:09,480
Speaker 1: the owner of the diamonds couldn't, like eyeball, identify that

755
00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:11,719
Speaker 1: the diamonds were mine. I don't know how how would

756
00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:13,800
Speaker 1: you like know that they were these were my diamonds.

757
00:43:14,239 --> 00:43:22,440
Speaker 1: I like diamonds. I don't believe that's fair. Maybe there

758
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:24,440
Speaker 1: was an etching on the bottom, or maybe there were

759
00:43:24,560 --> 00:43:27,800
Speaker 1: specific weight or specific cut perhaps for this guy could

760
00:43:27,800 --> 00:43:31,040
Speaker 1: not do that thing. So the Canadian cops had to

761
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:33,319
Speaker 1: let her go as well, and the New York d

762
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:36,879
Speaker 1: A didn't have jurisdicxon so he wasn't able to send

763
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:39,959
Speaker 1: anyone to the Canadian court to fetch her, and Marm

764
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:44,200
Speaker 1: and her associates once again ran free. Yeah yeah, and

765
00:43:44,480 --> 00:43:47,399
Speaker 1: she actually ended up with her diamonds, right, she totally did.

766
00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:52,760
Speaker 1: She retrieved her diamonds, which is absurdly baller second time around.

767
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:55,160
Speaker 1: I love the idea of the jail checkout where they

768
00:43:55,160 --> 00:43:58,080
Speaker 1: just hand her up. He can't figure out who they

769
00:43:58,080 --> 00:43:59,920
Speaker 1: belonged to, so they must be yours. Oh, she did

770
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:05,239
Speaker 1: have to pay six It's like the processing for sure.

771
00:44:05,600 --> 00:44:08,160
Speaker 1: So she used those diamonds and she bought herself a tiny,

772
00:44:08,239 --> 00:44:12,840
Speaker 1: the small, very meager, two story house along Hamilton's main street.

773
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:17,480
Speaker 1: And by she opened you guessed it again, another dry

774
00:44:17,560 --> 00:44:22,879
Speaker 1: goods store. She's really good at the dry goods and uh,

775
00:44:23,160 --> 00:44:25,640
Speaker 1: and it became a family operation, right and totally again.

776
00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:29,520
Speaker 1: Her three children joined her, Annie and Julius permanently, and

777
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:33,160
Speaker 1: then her married daughter Sarah stayed in Hamilton's behind for

778
00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:36,240
Speaker 1: a time before returning back to New York with her family.

779
00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:41,160
Speaker 1: And so now we're at this this strange sort of crossroads, right,

780
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:44,640
Speaker 1: we have to ask ourselves, was Marm finally after all

781
00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:47,840
Speaker 1: these years on the street and narrow were her Queen

782
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:50,960
Speaker 1: pinned days behind her. We're very proud of that phrase.

783
00:44:51,719 --> 00:44:55,640
Speaker 1: Pretty good. It depends on what you think, and we

784
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:57,400
Speaker 1: want to hear your opinion on this and what you

785
00:44:57,440 --> 00:45:00,480
Speaker 1: think about this letter that she sent to her friends

786
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:03,320
Speaker 1: in New York after she had started her dry goods

787
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:06,440
Speaker 1: store in Canada. I like how Ben sets this up,

788
00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:08,279
Speaker 1: like there will be question marks in your head, but

789
00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:11,800
Speaker 1: when you hear this, there won't. Uh Marm wrote quote,

790
00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:14,200
Speaker 1: I beg to announce to you that I have opened

791
00:45:14,239 --> 00:45:18,200
Speaker 1: my new emporium in every respect the equal of my

792
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:21,960
Speaker 1: late New York establishment. I shall be pleased to continue

793
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:26,359
Speaker 1: our former pleasant business relations, promising not alone to pay

794
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:29,080
Speaker 1: the best prices for the article which you may have

795
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:33,719
Speaker 1: for sale, but also in carefully protecting all my customers,

796
00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:38,440
Speaker 1: no matter at what expense. With my present facilities, I

797
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 1: am able to dispose of all commodities forwarded to me

798
00:45:42,920 --> 00:45:47,080
Speaker 1: with dispatch and security, trusting to hear from you soon,

799
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:50,480
Speaker 1: and assuring you that a renewal of past favors will

800
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:55,719
Speaker 1: be greatly appreciated. I am yours faithfully, F Mandelbau. Can

801
00:45:55,760 --> 00:45:58,200
Speaker 1: we unpack some of this kind of dated language real quick?

802
00:45:58,640 --> 00:46:01,120
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I don't even know that it's dating well

803
00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:04,600
Speaker 1: thinly veiled letter of all times exactly. But with my

804
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:08,839
Speaker 1: present facilities, I am able to dispose of all commodities

805
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:11,879
Speaker 1: forwarded to me with dispatch and security. So I'm gonna

806
00:46:11,920 --> 00:46:14,319
Speaker 1: move your soul and stuff. I'm gonna continue doing what

807
00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:16,120
Speaker 1: I use you guys. It's still totally cool. I'm just

808
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:18,600
Speaker 1: doing it somewhere else. If it was written in it

809
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:21,319
Speaker 1: would have just said I'm back at it. See you

810
00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:25,600
Speaker 1: come get me. Yeah, yeah, it's it's true. Like dispatch

811
00:46:25,640 --> 00:46:27,759
Speaker 1: and security, I'll not only move all your stuff, but

812
00:46:27,760 --> 00:46:30,200
Speaker 1: I'll move it faster than anyone else, and you will

813
00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:32,120
Speaker 1: not get busted as you would if you went to

814
00:46:32,239 --> 00:46:36,319
Speaker 1: other less reputable fencing establishment. There you go. So a

815
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:39,680
Speaker 1: gentleman from New Yorker reporter headed on up to Canada.

816
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:42,359
Speaker 1: Just you know, peek in the store, see what's going

817
00:46:42,400 --> 00:46:48,800
Speaker 1: on in there. Uh again, it's completely legit, he said, sarcastically.

818
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:51,400
Speaker 1: And uh. This guy reacted in in a way that

819
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:54,320
Speaker 1: can only be described as faint surprise when he found

820
00:46:54,600 --> 00:46:58,640
Speaker 1: that all of the new Canadian stores merchandise came from

821
00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:02,360
Speaker 1: New York City. That weird. Uh, everything was being sold

822
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:07,919
Speaker 1: at incredibly almost unbelievably low prices, and there were absolutely

823
00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:14,120
Speaker 1: zero identifying labels on any of the merchandise. It checks

824
00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:16,560
Speaker 1: out basically. So it appeared that Morm was, you know,

825
00:47:16,920 --> 00:47:19,520
Speaker 1: you'd think she set up in this new place. Whatever

826
00:47:19,560 --> 00:47:21,960
Speaker 1: she's doing, bribing whoever, she's got a bribe, but whatever

827
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:24,120
Speaker 1: she's doing to continue this business, it seems like she

828
00:47:24,239 --> 00:47:27,600
Speaker 1: was ready to start a new basically a new chapter

829
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:29,960
Speaker 1: for her. She's gonna live life out as all the

830
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:34,440
Speaker 1: stories would want us to believe, happily ever after. But unfortunately, UM,

831
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:36,839
Speaker 1: it wasn't gonna work out that way for her. Um,

832
00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:39,960
Speaker 1: this is a little bit sad here. Her daughter Annie

833
00:47:40,080 --> 00:47:42,160
Speaker 1: were talking about how she was up there in Canada

834
00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:44,239
Speaker 1: with her while she went back to New York, as

835
00:47:44,239 --> 00:47:46,440
Speaker 1: we mentioned, and while she was there, she got pretty

836
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:49,720
Speaker 1: sick and she ended up developing pneumonia. And then on November,

837
00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:54,319
Speaker 1: her daughter Annie died, and there was no way that

838
00:47:54,480 --> 00:47:58,200
Speaker 1: Morm was going to not go back and be there,

839
00:47:58,360 --> 00:48:01,239
Speaker 1: you know, for her daughter's burial. Um, and whatever the

840
00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:03,719
Speaker 1: cost might be, whether it was to her livelihood, to

841
00:48:03,800 --> 00:48:06,799
Speaker 1: her own personal freedom, she was gonna do whatever it took.

842
00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:10,000
Speaker 1: Because we talked about earlier in the show. Her children

843
00:48:10,080 --> 00:48:12,520
Speaker 1: were her first and foremost priority. She was going to

844
00:48:12,840 --> 00:48:15,719
Speaker 1: be there for them, come hell or high water. And

845
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:19,520
Speaker 1: so Mom's Mom Morm's former home was now owned by

846
00:48:19,560 --> 00:48:23,280
Speaker 1: a Mrs marx Uh and Morm and her son Julius

847
00:48:23,640 --> 00:48:27,160
Speaker 1: actually slipped into the house um and they were and

848
00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:31,440
Speaker 1: Morm was overcome by grief, and she fainted at the time.

849
00:48:31,719 --> 00:48:34,239
Speaker 1: And she obviously had re established some of those old

850
00:48:34,239 --> 00:48:37,080
Speaker 1: connections and those old friendships because she had a group

851
00:48:37,160 --> 00:48:39,080
Speaker 1: of friends who actually were there for her and escorted

852
00:48:39,080 --> 00:48:41,160
Speaker 1: her out of the house and they hit her in

853
00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:44,680
Speaker 1: a different home across the street while she recovered Um.

854
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:48,680
Speaker 1: But while it was clear that giving Annie a Christian

855
00:48:48,680 --> 00:48:51,320
Speaker 1: burial would help kind of like make things a little

856
00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:55,240
Speaker 1: more low key and under the radar, Morm insisted that

857
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:59,000
Speaker 1: it had to be a traditional Jewish service in accordance

858
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:02,120
Speaker 1: with her faith, because like that, she was very, very religious,

859
00:49:02,120 --> 00:49:03,600
Speaker 1: and there was no other way that it was going

860
00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:07,400
Speaker 1: to work for her. So Marm's son Julius, tried to

861
00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:09,719
Speaker 1: do a little disguise work. He shaved his hair and

862
00:49:09,760 --> 00:49:12,560
Speaker 1: beard so that he would evade the police. But Marm

863
00:49:12,880 --> 00:49:15,399
Speaker 1: we mentioned she was a very tall woman and very large.

864
00:49:15,400 --> 00:49:18,239
Speaker 1: She was imposing, so you couldn't really costume that situation

865
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:21,799
Speaker 1: and make her not look like herself. Uh. And she

866
00:49:21,920 --> 00:49:24,399
Speaker 1: was grieving very deeply, so she probably wasn't really into

867
00:49:24,440 --> 00:49:27,839
Speaker 1: the costume idea to begin with. Um. And what's really

868
00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:31,440
Speaker 1: interesting is that her street family, like her criminal family,

869
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:34,160
Speaker 1: came to her daughter's funeral as well. So it was

870
00:49:34,200 --> 00:49:38,240
Speaker 1: like burglars and bank thieves and pickpockets and basically every

871
00:49:38,320 --> 00:49:40,400
Speaker 1: kind of person she had ever touched in her life

872
00:49:40,640 --> 00:49:44,200
Speaker 1: and in her school, etcetera. And they all came out publicly.

873
00:49:44,239 --> 00:49:46,799
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody at this point is taking a big risk,

874
00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:48,840
Speaker 1: but they wanted to pay their respects to her daughter.

875
00:49:49,360 --> 00:49:52,719
Speaker 1: And afterwards marm went back to Hamilton, Canada. She was

876
00:49:52,760 --> 00:49:56,160
Speaker 1: not apprehended by police, uh and the Pinkerton's also left

877
00:49:56,160 --> 00:49:59,759
Speaker 1: her alone. And it's unclear still if the cops to

878
00:50:00,160 --> 00:50:02,880
Speaker 1: pity on a grieving mother. What we do know for

879
00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:06,400
Speaker 1: sure is that uh, she did return uh, and that

880
00:50:06,480 --> 00:50:09,560
Speaker 1: there was a police officer even stationed at the funeral

881
00:50:09,640 --> 00:50:12,600
Speaker 1: and so they knew she was there, and reporters were

882
00:50:12,600 --> 00:50:14,880
Speaker 1: even there to interview her that day, so it was

883
00:50:14,920 --> 00:50:17,120
Speaker 1: not a secret at all. But they all just let

884
00:50:17,120 --> 00:50:20,279
Speaker 1: her leave in peace after the service was over. And

885
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:23,800
Speaker 1: can I make to me this just rings true of

886
00:50:24,080 --> 00:50:28,120
Speaker 1: that sentiment that is a occurred and it's it's occurred

887
00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:30,000
Speaker 1: in the past several times and you kind of feel

888
00:50:30,040 --> 00:50:33,360
Speaker 1: it in waves. And I say this as in at lantern,

889
00:50:33,920 --> 00:50:37,680
Speaker 1: but that idea that we're all New Yorkers, right, like

890
00:50:37,680 --> 00:50:40,320
Speaker 1: like they know that all of these criminals are gathered

891
00:50:40,360 --> 00:50:42,680
Speaker 1: in this one place, but they also know that she

892
00:50:42,880 --> 00:50:45,680
Speaker 1: and these other people are important in some way as

893
00:50:45,719 --> 00:50:49,120
Speaker 1: a whole, as a community, as a whole, right, so

894
00:50:49,160 --> 00:50:51,080
Speaker 1: they just kind of let it slide. And I think

895
00:50:51,120 --> 00:50:54,080
Speaker 1: it speaks to the city. And there's also like almost

896
00:50:54,080 --> 00:50:56,600
Speaker 1: like a rules of engagement kind of situation where it's

897
00:50:56,640 --> 00:50:58,879
Speaker 1: like this is not fair game. It's like you don't

898
00:50:58,960 --> 00:51:01,640
Speaker 1: arrest somebody when they're going to church, you know, like

899
00:51:01,960 --> 00:51:04,320
Speaker 1: that that's sort of like an unspoken rule even between

900
00:51:04,360 --> 00:51:07,960
Speaker 1: law enforcement and criminal it would seem extraordinarily cruel to

901
00:51:08,080 --> 00:51:11,359
Speaker 1: arrest someone at their daughter's funeral. Yeah. I have a

902
00:51:11,440 --> 00:51:14,680
Speaker 1: theory as well that I think is pretty plausible. Uh,

903
00:51:14,800 --> 00:51:18,840
Speaker 1: odds are statistically that police officer at some point worked

904
00:51:18,840 --> 00:51:21,239
Speaker 1: with or for marm you know what I mean. So

905
00:51:21,480 --> 00:51:24,920
Speaker 1: he may have been grieving just as much. But from

906
00:51:24,960 --> 00:51:29,560
Speaker 1: that point on, marm becomes a successful, active pillar of

907
00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:33,960
Speaker 1: the community in Hamilton's Canada. Her shop is legit, by

908
00:51:34,000 --> 00:51:37,360
Speaker 1: which I mean no one officially reported a crime. That's

909
00:51:37,520 --> 00:51:41,239
Speaker 1: that was good enough for her. She regularly attended the

910
00:51:41,360 --> 00:51:44,359
Speaker 1: local synagogue and she began to use that as a

911
00:51:44,400 --> 00:51:49,040
Speaker 1: networking hub. She you know, seems dead set to become

912
00:51:49,080 --> 00:51:52,759
Speaker 1: a Canadian resident. However, that does not mean that New

913
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:55,359
Speaker 1: York City has forgotten about her. As a matter of fact,

914
00:51:55,560 --> 00:51:59,000
Speaker 1: quite the opposite. She becomes sort of a celebrity icon

915
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:03,520
Speaker 1: of her day. She's like Elvis Presley. She's like Bigfoot.

916
00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:06,560
Speaker 1: Everybody is seen this lady in New York and they

917
00:52:06,560 --> 00:52:10,479
Speaker 1: are convinced that it's her. But regardless of how many

918
00:52:10,560 --> 00:52:13,520
Speaker 1: times they see her, they describe her and so on,

919
00:52:13,680 --> 00:52:15,799
Speaker 1: and they're like this close to maybe trying to get

920
00:52:15,800 --> 00:52:18,160
Speaker 1: a picture of her or something. They never they never

921
00:52:18,239 --> 00:52:22,480
Speaker 1: catch her. It's almost like the fame of who she

922
00:52:22,560 --> 00:52:26,560
Speaker 1: had become had arrested the city and people wanted to

923
00:52:26,600 --> 00:52:30,960
Speaker 1: have their own Mom Mandel bound story. And eventually she

924
00:52:31,200 --> 00:52:35,680
Speaker 1: passed away and at the time her her obituaries, which

925
00:52:35,680 --> 00:52:40,280
Speaker 1: were published made international news, and they were not vilifying her. Really,

926
00:52:40,640 --> 00:52:44,880
Speaker 1: there was even at the even from the law enforcement community,

927
00:52:44,960 --> 00:52:47,560
Speaker 1: there was a sense of begrudging respect. They referred to

928
00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:51,680
Speaker 1: her as old mother Mom, the Queen of Fences, and

929
00:52:52,120 --> 00:52:58,200
Speaker 1: in February, when she passed away, contemporary accounts described her

930
00:52:58,320 --> 00:53:02,359
Speaker 1: death as due to something called Bright's disease. Nowadays we

931
00:53:02,400 --> 00:53:06,880
Speaker 1: recognize that as nephritis or kidney disease. Uh, and her

932
00:53:06,920 --> 00:53:11,480
Speaker 1: body was actually returned to New York. However, there was

933
00:53:11,520 --> 00:53:15,440
Speaker 1: a mystery afoot. Well, yeah, if you're you're someone with

934
00:53:15,480 --> 00:53:18,480
Speaker 1: the influence and intelligence of mar Mandelbaum, and you wanted

935
00:53:18,520 --> 00:53:20,920
Speaker 1: to get back to New York, maybe you could arrange

936
00:53:20,920 --> 00:53:23,680
Speaker 1: to have it look like you died and then maybe

937
00:53:23,719 --> 00:53:28,279
Speaker 1: send your body, your body in a coffin to New York. Right,

938
00:53:28,360 --> 00:53:31,360
Speaker 1: But maybe it's just stones. Maybe it's actually stolen goods

939
00:53:31,360 --> 00:53:34,160
Speaker 1: that are in that coffin. That'd be pretty cool. Who knows.

940
00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:37,640
Speaker 1: And her legend, of course feeds all of these you know,

941
00:53:37,800 --> 00:53:40,120
Speaker 1: thoughts that people were having. They were wondering, was it

942
00:53:40,160 --> 00:53:43,839
Speaker 1: possible that she's still alive and living in Ontario, and

943
00:53:44,040 --> 00:53:47,239
Speaker 1: was she as some course sources claimed, calling herself an

944
00:53:47,360 --> 00:53:50,919
Speaker 1: entirely new thing, reinventing herself as Madame Fuchs and then

945
00:53:51,080 --> 00:53:54,719
Speaker 1: kind of plotting a covert return to the lowery sign. Yeah,

946
00:53:54,800 --> 00:53:57,640
Speaker 1: but perhapsingly the better question is do legends ever truly

947
00:53:57,680 --> 00:54:01,000
Speaker 1: pass away? And to quote the you know, the wonderful

948
00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:03,560
Speaker 1: a Nelion, it's better to burn out than to fade away,

949
00:54:03,719 --> 00:54:06,839
Speaker 1: you know, And that's exactly what what Mandel Bomb did.

950
00:54:07,520 --> 00:54:10,479
Speaker 1: It's a good question because we know that while mar

951
00:54:10,680 --> 00:54:14,320
Speaker 1: may no longer be with us today, her legacy does remain.

952
00:54:14,640 --> 00:54:17,320
Speaker 1: She was the most successful fence. She was the first

953
00:54:17,360 --> 00:54:20,439
Speaker 1: mob boss of this country in history. At its heart

954
00:54:20,719 --> 00:54:23,480
Speaker 1: is a palam sest. You know, whatever occurs or is

955
00:54:23,520 --> 00:54:28,160
Speaker 1: written today will never fully erase the past. It's so true.

956
00:54:28,200 --> 00:54:30,880
Speaker 1: So the next time you're walking around in this area,

957
00:54:31,160 --> 00:54:32,520
Speaker 1: if you just happen to make it over here and

958
00:54:32,520 --> 00:54:36,000
Speaker 1: you walk past seventy nine Clinton Street, just take a second,

959
00:54:36,200 --> 00:54:39,200
Speaker 1: just stand there for a second, knowing the history, because

960
00:54:39,239 --> 00:54:41,919
Speaker 1: there's a pawn shop right there in that location. Now

961
00:54:42,040 --> 00:54:45,160
Speaker 1: a pawn shop. It's kind of crazy, right, There's a sign,

962
00:54:45,200 --> 00:54:47,360
Speaker 1: a big, bold yellow sign with bright red letters that

963
00:54:47,400 --> 00:54:53,600
Speaker 1: says we buy gold, silver, diamonds and any other that

964
00:54:55,800 --> 00:54:58,040
Speaker 1: it does say we do repairs, though of course they do.

965
00:54:58,640 --> 00:55:01,759
Speaker 1: You can also actually find her burial site um at

966
00:55:01,800 --> 00:55:06,279
Speaker 1: the Union Field Cemetery at Congregation Rhodef Shalom, which is

967
00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:09,960
Speaker 1: in Queen's today. And so maybe we end on some

968
00:55:10,080 --> 00:55:16,680
Speaker 1: other questions. Was Frederica marm Mandelbaum a criminal? I mean, yes, yes,

969
00:55:16,920 --> 00:55:19,719
Speaker 1: that that was pretty easy to answer. But was she

970
00:55:19,960 --> 00:55:22,840
Speaker 1: a bad person? That depends on who you're asking. And

971
00:55:22,880 --> 00:55:27,200
Speaker 1: it's also although it's tempting to oversimplify people and to

972
00:55:27,239 --> 00:55:29,799
Speaker 1: put them in the box of good or bad, you know,

973
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:34,960
Speaker 1: diabolical or saint, like it's unfair to them and like

974
00:55:35,120 --> 00:55:38,080
Speaker 1: any other person, Marm was much more complex than a

975
00:55:38,120 --> 00:55:41,080
Speaker 1: pat answer, you know, and thank you so much for

976
00:55:41,160 --> 00:55:44,520
Speaker 1: joining us, Holly pleasure. I have to ask, I know

977
00:55:44,560 --> 00:55:47,480
Speaker 1: everybody's wondering if you're not familiar yet. For for a

978
00:55:47,640 --> 00:55:50,359
Speaker 1: fellow history buffs in the audience, where can they learn

979
00:55:50,400 --> 00:55:53,240
Speaker 1: more about stuff you missed in history class? We are

980
00:55:53,280 --> 00:55:56,239
Speaker 1: everywhere on social media as missed in History. You can

981
00:55:56,280 --> 00:55:59,160
Speaker 1: also go to missed in History dot com and find

982
00:55:59,239 --> 00:56:03,200
Speaker 1: all of our episodes of all time going back many

983
00:56:03,320 --> 00:56:06,560
Speaker 1: years uh and any of the episodes since Tracy and

984
00:56:06,560 --> 00:56:09,880
Speaker 1: I have been on the show, which has been since. Uh,

985
00:56:10,040 --> 00:56:12,799
Speaker 1: we'll have show notes attached to them, So come and visit.

986
00:56:12,840 --> 00:56:14,759
Speaker 1: We would love to meet you. If you want to

987
00:56:14,840 --> 00:56:16,279
Speaker 1: check out more stuff they don't want you to know,

988
00:56:16,440 --> 00:56:18,920
Speaker 1: you can do that by going to your podcast platform

989
00:56:18,920 --> 00:56:20,880
Speaker 1: of choice and look up stuff that I want you

990
00:56:20,880 --> 00:56:23,360
Speaker 1: to know. You can find us on Instagram and Twitter

991
00:56:23,400 --> 00:56:26,640
Speaker 1: and all that stuff is conspiracy stuff. Show conspiracy stuff

992
00:56:26,760 --> 00:56:29,000
Speaker 1: or conspiracy Yeah, one or the other. Just just just

993
00:56:29,080 --> 00:56:31,920
Speaker 1: keep up. Before we wrap up entirely though, I had

994
00:56:31,920 --> 00:56:33,759
Speaker 1: a fat question. One thing I noticed when we were

995
00:56:33,760 --> 00:56:36,440
Speaker 1: researching this is there's not a lot of like evidence

996
00:56:36,520 --> 00:56:39,840
Speaker 1: in the writings and the the history of mar Mandelbaum

997
00:56:39,840 --> 00:56:43,560
Speaker 1: about her being some kind of ruthless, murderous person. There's

998
00:56:43,640 --> 00:56:48,080
Speaker 1: really a little violence in her story. Well, here's the thing.

999
00:56:48,160 --> 00:56:51,399
Speaker 1: When you're operating a criminal enterprise like that, how how

1000
00:56:51,440 --> 00:56:52,839
Speaker 1: are you going to prove a lot of the things

1001
00:56:52,840 --> 00:56:56,040
Speaker 1: that happen in the basements of you know, theaters before

1002
00:56:56,040 --> 00:56:59,320
Speaker 1: they get excavated? Right? Good question, Like, really, how do

1003
00:56:59,360 --> 00:57:01,440
Speaker 1: you prove that stuff unless you get caught red handed

1004
00:57:01,520 --> 00:57:05,200
Speaker 1: or somebody uh leaks that information to the authorities or

1005
00:57:05,239 --> 00:57:08,080
Speaker 1: something like that, or a bribe arrives late. Well exactly,

1006
00:57:08,360 --> 00:57:12,200
Speaker 1: how do we really know what was happening her enterprise,

1007
00:57:12,280 --> 00:57:15,439
Speaker 1: but her AMMO definitely does seem to have been kind

1008
00:57:15,480 --> 00:57:17,160
Speaker 1: of more of a killing with kindness, like I will

1009
00:57:17,200 --> 00:57:19,600
Speaker 1: win everyone over because she was a diplomat. I think

1010
00:57:19,640 --> 00:57:22,560
Speaker 1: even the people and the situation with her daughter's funeral

1011
00:57:22,680 --> 00:57:26,240
Speaker 1: is even evidence that even the people who were uh

1012
00:57:26,360 --> 00:57:30,080
Speaker 1: positioned against her in terms of the battle of legalities

1013
00:57:30,480 --> 00:57:33,200
Speaker 1: still kind of loved her. Yeah, you have to. I mean,

1014
00:57:33,480 --> 00:57:37,040
Speaker 1: you have to respect someone even if if you're diametrically opposed.

1015
00:57:37,240 --> 00:57:40,880
Speaker 1: Because I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and maybe a speculation,

1016
00:57:41,240 --> 00:57:43,640
Speaker 1: but like you said, Hollie, everything about her proves that

1017
00:57:43,920 --> 00:57:46,880
Speaker 1: she didn't get her hands dirty, and she would probably

1018
00:57:46,920 --> 00:57:50,120
Speaker 1: say that murder is bad for business when you think

1019
00:57:50,160 --> 00:57:53,840
Speaker 1: about it. Right again, thank you guys so much for

1020
00:57:53,920 --> 00:57:59,760
Speaker 1: having me. Thanks the Warder Brothers. Please check out the

1021
00:58:00,080 --> 00:58:03,000
Speaker 1: Chin if you'd like to hear more stories about similarly

1022
00:58:03,240 --> 00:58:07,320
Speaker 1: badass women. Right it's coming up Friday, August nine, and

1023
00:58:07,440 --> 00:58:09,600
Speaker 1: I'm getting thumbs up to everybody who's in the audience,

1024
00:58:10,240 --> 00:58:12,960
Speaker 1: and thanks so much, Thanks so much for coming. We

1025
00:58:13,120 --> 00:58:16,680
Speaker 1: hope you enjoy the theater. The uh. The Gangster Museum

1026
00:58:16,880 --> 00:58:19,160
Speaker 1: is upstairs by the way, if you ever in town

1027
00:58:19,160 --> 00:58:22,200
Speaker 1: and want to check that out. Thank you, thank you,

1028
00:58:22,360 --> 00:58:41,000
Speaker 1: thank you. Stuff They Don't Want You to Know is

1029
00:58:41,040 --> 00:58:43,800
Speaker 1: a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more

1030
00:58:43,840 --> 00:58:46,600
Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,

1031
00:58:46,680 --> 00:58:49,520
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.