A compelling and evocative biography of the redoubtable Mrs. Mandelbaum

If you thought organized crime in the United States had its roots in the Prohibition era, think again. As Margalit Fox demonstrates in this compelling and evocative biography, its seeds were sown half a century earlier, when a resourceful, daring and ingenious woman enjoyed a long and successful career as a forerunner of the familiar twentieth-century “Godfather” figure. By the mid-1880s, she was the boss of America’s most notorious crime syndicate, presiding over a multimillion-dollar criminal empire which stretched across the country and even into Mexico and Europe.

Born in Kassel, Germany in 1825, Fredericka “Marm” Mandelbaum came to America in 1850, part of the mass exodus of European Jews in that period. The United States — nicknamed “Das Dollarland” in her home country — was viewed as the land of economic opportunity, but when she and her husband settled on New York’s Lower East Side, in a slum known as Kleindeutschland, there wasn’t much evidence of it. Certainly, for a woman who was used to being able to contribute to the household income, there were few possibilities beyond poorly-paid long hours as a servant or backbreaking, and undependable, sewing jobs.

Summing up Mandelbaum’s situation, Fox writes: “Professional advancement, to say nothing of great wealth, seemed beyond contemplation for someone who, like her, was marginalized three times over: immigrant, woman and Jew.” Having spent her first five years in America peddling lace door-to-door, she crossed into criminality when she realized that it was the only route out of poverty. She came into the orbit of a noted “fence” — receiver of stolen goods — who schooled her in appraising the value of lace, silk, cashmere, sealskin and the other luxury goods which passed, fleetingly, through their hands. Intelligent and astute, she quickly established herself as one of New York’s premier fences. By the mid-1860s, she had opened the shop which would remain her headquarters for two decades, and it was here, in a sprawling warren of secret rooms, that she assembled her troops, planned heists, had jewelry dismantled and engravings removed, shipped off orders and kept watch for visits from policemen who weren’t on her payroll — yet.

Many of the joys of Margalit Fox’s book lie in her detailed descriptions of various aspects of Mandelbaum’s operation, from the boldly simple, yet effective, trick deployed to separate Tiffany’s from some of its jewelry to the audacious, week-long tunneling exploits of the burglars who relieved Boston’s Boylston National Bank of between $150,000 and $1 million (between $3 million and more than $20 million today) in cash and securities.

Particularly delicious is the account of Mandelbaum’s “bespoke security system.” Not only did it feature a trap door which her employees could use for an emergency exit, it also included a trick chimney in her parlor fireplace. As Fox describes it:

Inside the back was a dumbwaiter that communicated with the floor above. If Marm, peering through the bars, saw a suspicious character enter the shop, she could make whatever swag she had on hand vanish in an instant. With the pull of a hidden lever, she would lower the dumbwaiter, stow her cache and hoist it safely out of sight.

The movie is simply crying out to be made, so vivid and entertaining are the descriptions.

Fredericka Mandelbaum emerges as a remarkable and inspired — inspiring, even — figure, a mother of four whose maternal nature and fondness for her employees were rewarded by generally unfailing loyalty and affection (hence the nickname “Marm”). She called the members of her shoplifting and pickpocketing squad her “chicks,” and looked after her work-family, paying salaries, supporting wives when the husbands were in jail, and even organizing company picnics. Such was her popularity in her neighborhood that the locals looked out for her, one of the reasons she was able to get away with it all for so long, another being her “friends” in the police department. Meanwhile, she threw famously lavish dinner parties which were attended by the great and the good and gave her the opportunity to sport even more recycled bling than she wore during her daily business.

Her success as a woman in what was very much a man’s world, whether the underworld or the “upper,” was highly unusual and deeply impressive. But this is not merely the biography of one unique woman; it would be a considerably slimmer volume if it were. It is a lively and engrossing evocation of an era when the underworld flourished in tandem with the respectable “upper” world.

The period following the end of the Civil War saw the outbreak, says Fox, of “an epidemic of longing” and “a mass acquisitive drive.” It was therefore, she observes, “a halcyon time” for criminal receivers, and it was relatively easy for the likes of Mandelbaum to get her hands on luxury items swiped from under the noses of sales assistants in the new department stores where goods were spread out on top of counters, a style of presentation which tantalized shoppers and shoplifters alike. She excelled at her life of crime and came out on top until 1884 when she was arrested, although, typically, she fled police bail and settled in Hamilton, Ontario, where she lived until her death in 1894.

Fox brings the period to life by providing sharply drawn cameos of a supporting cast of colorful characters. Among them are the legendary private detective Allan Pinkerton and Mandelbaum’s longstanding lawyers, of whom Fox writes: “Had Howe and Hummel not already existed, Damon Runyon would have had to invent them.” Yet even Runyon would have struggled to outdo this fascinating and compulsively readable study of the redoubtable Mrs. Mandelbaum and the age in which she thrived.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s August 2024 World edition.