Vulgar History - The Jewish Lady Gangster Who Ran New York City

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00:00:30.000 hello and welcome to vulgar history a feminist women's history comedy podcast my name is anne

00:00:45.880 foster and i'm joined today by a very special guest i think the person who's been the guest

00:00:51.540 the most times on this podcast it's the one and only allison epstein hello friends that's a title

00:00:58.200 I'm very happy to keep. Welcome to me. The person you're going to have to fight is Lana Wood Johnson.

00:01:03.800 But she when when we get into the Habsburgs of this season, she's going to start. I will step 0.98

00:01:08.540 back and she can take the title. Yeah, that thank God she's going to be there for that. 1.00

00:01:15.620 But so, Alison, before we get started, there are, I think, two to three important things to say last

00:01:22.160 time when you're on here promoting your previous book. I was like, OK, everybody, here's the five

00:01:26.380 specific things you all need to do. And again, today, there's various things to instruct everybody

00:01:30.420 to do. But the first thing we're doing is we're wishing somebody happy birthday. And that is a

00:01:35.640 person named Carmen, whose mom, Irma, messaged me to say that Carmen has recently graduated from

00:01:41.760 UCLA with a degree in history. Huge accomplishment. Congratulations, Carmen. And it's also her

00:01:46.940 birthday. And she listens to Vulgar History with her mom. And so Irma was like, just wanted

00:01:52.720 something special for Carmen having graduated and it's her birthday. So happy birthday, Carmen.

00:01:58.420 Happy birthday, Carmen. Congratulations on graduation. That's awesome.

00:02:02.820 It's a huge accomplishment to get a history degree. And also I think it's very nice to have

00:02:08.080 a mother and daughter who get along. I was thinking, have I ever had anyone on the,

00:02:11.420 like people we've talked about on the podcast who are mother and daughter who got along?

00:02:14.760 And I thought about it. I was like, not Fred again, because she and her daughter did not get

00:02:19.260 along not queen margot that was my next guess no catherine de medici not a great mother of 0.95

00:02:25.800 daughters marie de guise i guess for mary queen of scots you know they weren't together but she

00:02:30.820 was like she was there for her in a way the best one and we haven't really talked about the podcast

00:02:36.740 but in history um catherine of aragon and mary the first they had a strong bond yes love that for

00:02:42.820 them yeah but i was like huh mothers and daughters like we've had a lot of like mothers with shitty

00:02:47.940 sons who become kings or emperors when the mother should really be in charge. But I was like, 0.67

00:02:52.900 mothers and daughters, it's not a thing that comes up a lot on this podcast. But also because

00:02:56.220 we've talked a lot of history periods where people weren't hands-on parenting.

00:03:01.460 You do have a lot of mothers naming daughters after themselves, which I think is a good

00:03:05.220 sign for strong mother-daughter bonds.

00:03:08.380 It is. And you know who is a good mother? Carolina Brunswick. To her daughter,

00:03:11.200 Princess Charlotte.

00:03:12.420 And all the other babies that she found. 0.91

00:03:14.480 she was a woman with a strong maternal instinct and she just flung it out wherever she could

00:03:22.920 because she had to do something with all that maternal energy anyway allison so a couple of

00:03:29.520 things that people need to know this episode is coming out towards the end of february and at the

00:03:34.080 end of february your book is being published it sure is this is a wild time to be allison epstein

00:03:41.980 But my third novel, Fagin the Thief, is coming out in the U.S. and Canada on February the 25th.

00:03:48.840 So if you are in those territories or can get those territories to ship to you, that is when that book will be available.

00:03:55.700 So Canada and the U.S. for now.

00:03:57.420 But I mean, there's ways.

00:03:58.580 The Internet exists.

00:03:59.840 People can order things.

00:04:01.660 I hope that your book gets a publisher in the U.K.

00:04:05.020 Because I think it would be really cool for people there to read it just because of the Britishness of it all.

00:04:09.140 I want that so much.

00:04:10.920 Tits Up Brigade, if you know a UK publisher, you can send them my information. That would be great.

00:04:17.160 Absolutely. You know what? Tits Up Brigade, they're in every...

00:04:21.500 They're like my flying squadron. They're just like in every city, in every industry.

00:04:26.060 I'm sure there's somebody somewhere. But so Fagin' the Thief, tell everybody what your book is about.

00:04:29.940 Because for reasons we're going to talk about in a bit, we're not actually talking about your book today.

00:04:35.080 So talk about your book now.

00:04:36.040 no i this is my 30 second pitch for the book that we are in fact not talking about in this episode 0.51

00:04:42.080 um fagin the thief is an oliver twist retelling um so ann has already done so this asshole charles 0.97

00:04:48.660 dickens so i don't have to do that but this book is partly my fuck you charles dickens book and it 0.98

00:04:55.600 is a retelling of oliver twist from fagin's point of view the notoriously anti-semitic villain of 0.97

00:05:01.960 that book. So it's giving him a backstory from his childhood through how he became the terrible

00:05:08.860 villain that everybody knows from their high school English classes. It's the book of my heart.

00:05:13.880 I love it so much. And I am so excited for people to read it. I want to just also shout out to people

00:05:19.780 like me who don't know Fagin from their high school English classes, but from High School

00:05:23.980 musical productions yes also very famous from the uh oliver exclamation mark the musical which i

00:05:32.260 will tell you everybody probably eight out of ten people i've told i'm writing this book have gone

00:05:37.740 oh i played bill sykes or fagin or the artful dodger in my elementary school production of

00:05:44.660 oliver exclamation mark which i think is great oliver exclamation mark was done by the high

00:05:50.540 school in my city when I wasn't in high school yet. So it was like my older sister's generation.

00:05:55.380 And so the, I'm just thinking the trajectory. I forget the name of this actor. He was so good,

00:06:00.080 this high school actor who was, he was the star of all the shows. And so they did Oliver

00:06:03.960 Exclamation Point one year and he played Fagan and it was so good. It's such a, it's a great

00:06:09.380 role for like a charismatic performer. It's the best part of that play. No question. Yeah.

00:06:13.780 The songs are so good. And then the next year they did Fiddler on the Roof and he played Tevye.

00:06:17.740 Yeah. I have one follow up question. Was this individual Jewish or was this just quite a

00:06:22.340 two years for this guy? This was a Jewish actor. And I think they saw what he did with Fagin. And

00:06:30.080 the next year they chose to do Fiddler on the Roof because of him. So I'm pretty sure.

00:06:34.520 Love that trajectory for him. That's great. We did Fiddler on the Roof in my high school and

00:06:38.980 I had the lead role in Fiddler on the Roof, by which I mean I played the clarinet in the pit

00:06:44.380 band. And that was the most glorious moment of my high school career. Oh, fantastic. Okay. So

00:06:51.100 today we're not talking about Fake and the Thief. And Alison, can you reveal to everybody

00:06:54.500 where we will be, you and I, talking about Fake and the Thief, which is not in a podcast?

00:06:59.780 Which is not in a podcast. We're not talking about my book today because Anne and I are going to talk

00:07:04.800 about my book in real life, in person, at the book event that we're doing together in the first week

00:07:10.600 of March. So we will be live and in person on, oh God, I should have looked up the date. It's

00:07:16.320 March 4th, right? March 4th. There we go. In Minneapolis, Minnesota at Majors and Quinn

00:07:22.460 bookstore and is my in conversation partner for my book tour stop in Minneapolis, which I'm so

00:07:29.200 jazzed about. I'm really excited. Listeners, like people who have listened to some of my lowest

00:07:35.860 listen to episodes and answers Q and A's, um, we'll know that Alison and I have never met in

00:07:42.120 person before. So this is a monumental occasion that I'm going to be. Yesterday and asked me,

00:07:48.820 how tall are you? So we look forward to finding that out in person. Yeah, exactly. See if we

00:07:55.280 were telling the truth or not. I had to make some real shoe decisions about this event,

00:07:58.980 but um i'm so excited to be doing this event um yeah and it's free and everybody who lives in

00:08:06.540 minneapolis or st paul which i understand is not the same city but it's next to it um but you can

00:08:12.640 get there easily we're going to be so majors and quinn which is in uptown minneapolis yeah on

00:08:17.840 tuesday march 4th and while i'm in minneapolis i'm also going to be doing a meetup for the tits

00:08:23.860 Hood Brigade the next day. So if people could not be offering more to the people of Minneapolis,

00:08:29.840 seeing you and I in person, and then also we're going to be doing a meetup the next day. So

00:08:36.020 anyway, if people, so they go to your, actually your website is probably the best thing to,

00:08:40.580 to register, to go to the book event, which is free, but they want people to register.

00:08:44.800 Yes. Alisonepstein.com. There's a little events button you can click on. It'll have

00:08:49.100 info for our event. And if you're not in Minneapolis, but you're elsewhere around,

00:08:53.040 I have other events coming up. A couple of them are virtual. So you are all, all of the brigade is

00:08:58.180 welcome to attend if you would like to. I would, it was so fun to see Tits Up Brigade members in

00:09:03.720 person on my book tour for my last book. It was the best thing. So y'all are, y'all are amazing.

00:09:09.660 I hope to see you again this time. And I think any Tits Up Brigade member who reads your book

00:09:14.660 is going to get a special treat in the acknowledgements page. I will neither confirm nor deny

00:09:19.720 that. Got to pick up a copy and flip to the back and see if there's something there for you. But

00:09:24.960 yeah, so you're going on tour, you have this book, we're going to be talking about the book in

00:09:28.140 Minneapolis on March the 4th. And so I was like, we're not gonna, well, we can't do a podcast

00:09:33.780 about that too, because then we'd be talking about the same thing twice. And then you found

00:09:38.520 spiritually, okay, so we don't, spiritually a story of a woman who's got Fagin energy.

00:09:46.440 Fagin being a fictional character who lived in England,

00:09:49.120 and you found a real-life person who lived in America who was also a Jewish thief. 0.56

00:09:55.340 Yes, I found a person who is Fagin energy parentheses positive. 0.99

00:10:00.540 So also, I have a nasty tendency to keep writing books about men,

00:10:05.400 so I wanted to find Fagin vibes positive parentheses Lady Fagin.

00:10:10.280 So very excited to tell this story on the podcast today.

00:10:13.380 And I'm excited for, well, obviously for a gazillion reasons, but one of them is also

00:10:17.360 because this is a Jewish character and I mean, person, real life person.

00:10:22.460 Quite a character though.

00:10:24.500 Honestly, yes. 0.97

00:10:26.220 But yeah, I always want to find people who are not Christian to talk about on this podcast. 0.98

00:10:32.820 And yeah, anyway, you found one, you found one and she's great. 0.51

00:10:36.580 And so this is one of those episodes where Alison is going to be telling the story and

00:10:40.620 I will be listening with the rest of you in rapt attention. So Alison, please, who are we talking

00:10:47.980 about today? We are talking about Frederica Mandelbaum, often called Marm Mandelbaum. So

00:10:53.880 that's how I'm referring to her. And my notes have her title as the Gilded Age crime boss and the 1.00

00:11:00.100 most devious bastard in New York City. She is fabulous. And I am delighted to tell her story. 1.00

00:11:06.800 I'm doing a thing my publicist is going to lose her mind about because I'm on here

00:11:10.720 to talk about somebody else's book but I read a fantastic biography of Mar Mandelbaum which is

00:11:17.160 called The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum by Margalit Fox I love this book I keep calling it The

00:11:23.580 Marvelous Mrs. Mandelbaum which is not the name of the book that's the Amazon Prime story with

00:11:28.100 that is my number one source for the story I'm about to tell and I do want to also just shout

00:11:33.580 out gilded age crime boss like we talked about uh cassie chadwick a few weeks ago um with annie

00:11:40.100 reed talking about her book so cassie chadwick was um she was sort of like the classy version

00:11:47.560 of what marm was up to like cassie chadwick was like up with the carnegie's and like in these like

00:11:53.720 fancy ballrooms pretending to be an heiress and marm mandelbaum again i've not read all the notes

00:11:59.260 He sent me there very long, but I feel like she's more like she's more like in the streets, right?

00:12:04.700 Here's the thing.

00:12:05.380 Yes, I know. 0.74

00:12:06.560 But she this is if if Cassie Chadwick is the uptown version, this is the downtown version.

00:12:13.420 Absolutely.

00:12:13.720 Yeah.

00:12:14.520 Yeah, exactly.

00:12:16.160 So I love Marm Mandelbaum just as a name.

00:12:19.140 It just sounds like somebody from like Uncle Scrooge comics or something.

00:12:23.040 And what I love about this, because we started our episode with mothers and daughters, that's like old timey slang for mom.

00:12:29.260 Because she was just the mom mob boss of the late 1800s in New York. 0.97

00:12:36.580 So she's. 1.00

00:12:37.380 So people now would call her mother.

00:12:39.880 They'd be like.

00:12:40.120 They'd be like Mama Mandelbaum.

00:12:41.600 Yeah.

00:12:41.960 Let's go hang out.

00:12:43.220 Yeah.

00:12:43.520 She's the best.

00:12:44.920 Okay.

00:12:45.680 So to start her story of crime bossing in New York City, we have to start with her original 0.99

00:12:53.260 young wife, which started in 1827.

00:12:56.520 She was born, Frederica Weisner, in the city of Kessel.

00:13:01.300 And I asked myself, where is Kessel?

00:13:03.640 And it's Germany now. 0.80

00:13:05.300 It wasn't Germany then.

00:13:07.060 Once again, I have to, I don't understand Germany.

00:13:10.760 And I refuse to learn.

00:13:12.940 Can I just say, because it's you and I and tangents are going to happen, but I have just

00:13:19.280 finished writing a book, Rebel of the Regency, the Scandiseca of Carolina Brunswick, Britain's

00:13:25.220 Uncrowned Queen.

00:13:25.700 pre-order soon um can we underline just finished writing a book finish oh yes and stuff yeah i did

00:13:31.700 i did finish writing my book but it involves so much not germany so much it's so hard to write

00:13:39.160 about and it also involves not italy where it's just like i just want to say like she went to

00:13:44.820 italy it's like no i can't because italy is not a thing she went to the she went to naples anyway

00:13:49.820 but the not germany of it all it's like well they are german people they're germanic people and

00:13:54.840 they speak german but it's not germany and it's so hard to talk around that so i respect you not

00:14:00.820 learning about it and i don't think anyone should okay and we don't need to for very long because

00:14:05.100 this is among many other things an immigration story so it's fine uh so um i'm gonna keep calling

00:14:11.760 her marm throughout this story just because that's easier so uh marm got married when she was 21 to a

00:14:18.480 man named wolf mandelbaum who was 23 they seem to have really loved each other they have a very

00:14:23.860 nice marriage. And also his name is Wolf, which I think is fabulous. So good for him.

00:14:29.420 Can I just tell you something? Because you said she's born 1827, right?

00:14:32.980 Yes.

00:14:33.720 So I was just being like, when was our last Jewish character born? Rochelle born 1821.

00:14:40.340 Oh, I didn't realize they were contemporaries.

00:14:43.680 Contemporaries. Yeah.

00:14:45.220 That's funny because I completely separate France and New York in the 19th century. They 0.95

00:14:50.660 are completely different timelines so I never it never occurred to me this at the same time

00:14:54.680 yeah yeah um so she's but I also like just that she's called Marm it reminds me of the episode

00:15:00.060 we did about um Madame Tussauds where we were talking about like as a little girl and we still

00:15:04.660 call her Madame Tussauds even though she was she was she was not Tussauds and she was not yet

00:15:10.260 married but she's just a little girl and she's little Madame Tussauds so Marm Mandelbaum she's

00:15:13.900 just this little girl she's already Marm yeah that's just like Grandma Mandelbaum she's 21

00:15:18.400 years old don't worry about it it's fine um so while they were in germany both uh marm and her

00:15:25.600 husband wolf probably had jobs of some kind um they were probably peddlers which is like you've

00:15:31.140 got a little cart you go around and you sell things uh one of the classic jobs available 0.69

00:15:35.620 to jewish people in europe at this time that was the job of rochelle's parents yeah there you go

00:15:40.340 uh but you don't make a lot of money doing that so in the 1840s wolf went ahead and immigrated

00:15:49.420 to new york city and started to set down roots and mom would follow him in 1850 so she was giving me

00:15:59.960 um fievel goes west an american tale exactly yes it is that if fievel then went to crime

00:16:08.240 yeah we'll get to the crime an american tale part three yep yes american tale part three it all goes

00:16:14.080 to hell okay so they set up in new york city i think they're in like i should have written down

00:16:20.360 what the neighborhood is now but back then it was like little germany so this is where all of the

00:16:26.060 jewish immigrants tended to go they would set up their own kind of neighborhood so they moved

00:16:30.880 there set up their own building set up sorry their own business more or less doing the same 1.00

00:16:36.120 thing they had been doing in germany they're they're street peddlers except now it's in new

00:16:39.920 york city and they're trying to make a go of it here um over time they'll have four kids together

00:16:46.340 two sons and two daughters uh so she's literally mama mandelbaum within the next i'm not going to

00:16:54.260 talk about wolf a lot in this story because he doesn't really do anything but in a positive way

00:17:00.080 like he's he's never in the way he's never complaining he's always just booping about

00:17:05.200 doing this business and so i just want to say at this point in the story respect for wolf mandelbaum

00:17:09.820 for minding his business yeah it's it's a rare and lovely thing in a story on this podcast to

00:17:16.380 have a husband who's not actively ruining the what he's just like you do you like um you were

00:17:22.540 on the episode the one about empress elizabeth and she had her like boyfriend who just like

00:17:26.900 planned parties for her good guy boyfriend yes yeah yeah it's just kind of like okay wolf it's

00:17:31.600 just like good for you. Like just stay out of her way and just like respect the queen who you're

00:17:35.420 with. And that's great. He knew he was lucky and he's like, this is great. He's like, I'm Tom

00:17:40.520 Holland. You're a Zendaya. Like, yes. And I'm comfortable with this. That's very secure. And

00:17:46.460 I love that about him. Okay. So now we have Marm, early thirties, um, living on the Lower East side

00:17:54.520 in New York City, being a street peddler with four kids and a husband who's fine. And that is

00:18:01.280 a recipe for a pretty standard immigrant life in New York City at this time. But mom is not 0.97

00:18:08.000 interested in having a standard immigrant life. She wants to be rich and famous and fabulous. 1.00

00:18:14.040 And so she says, okay, I'm already here working as a street peddler. I'm selling things on the

00:18:20.340 street. What if I start buying things off the street? What if I start buying things from

00:18:25.960 criminals off the street? And that's step one from standard business into crime mogul.

00:18:32.520 She starts very small. So it's like a pickpocket runs up to her on the street and it's like,

00:18:37.360 I stole this tie pin off of a guy walking by, but it's got his initials on it. So I can't sell it.

00:18:43.640 What do I do with this? And mom says, great. You give it to me. It's going to cost you 50 cents.

00:18:48.460 I'm going to take it home

00:18:49.760 I'm going to take these initials out

00:18:51.380 I'm going to make sure that no one can trace this

00:18:53.880 and then I'm going to sell it for $5

00:18:56.160 which at the time

00:18:58.180 like inflation between

00:18:59.900 1850 and 2025 is hilarious

00:19:02.340 so when I'm saying like $5 0.77

00:19:03.520 that's shit tons of money

00:19:04.880 but also you just explained 0.91

00:19:07.960 so elegantly something that I've never really understood

00:19:10.120 which is fencing

00:19:11.220 this is what being a fence is 1.00

00:19:14.480 she's the most famous 1.00

00:19:16.320 fence in New York City 0.88

00:19:18.460 She is not herself a thief because she is, as she will be as her career gets better,

00:19:25.440 a upstanding Jewish mother of four who goes to the synagogue every Friday night and like

00:19:30.680 just wants to mind her business. 1.00

00:19:32.400 But she's the most successful fence, maybe.

00:19:35.480 And so the like today, the vibes would be someone who's like, oh, yeah, no, this like,

00:19:39.820 I don't know, TV just fell out of a truck.

00:19:41.880 Like, do you want to buy it for $50?

00:19:43.840 Like, yeah, she's that person.

00:19:45.940 Yeah.

00:19:46.380 Yeah.

00:19:46.580 And it's the book, The Talented Mrs. Mendelbaum, has a really interesting chapter on, like, why fences were so important at this point in history, which I have never really thought about before.

00:19:56.720 But, like, today, everything's pretty much mass produced.

00:20:00.100 Like, a TV looks like a TV, right?

00:20:02.060 And if you have one, no one's going to be able to look at it and say, oh, I know you got this TV from the Best Buy on 48th and Clark, so now I know this is stolen.

00:20:11.120 but back in like right now which is like marm mandelbaum was immediately before the american

00:20:17.320 civil war so back then this was like just before the industrial revolution kind of started to hit

00:20:23.700 and mass production was happening at this point when she's starting out her career everything is

00:20:28.360 artisanal everything is handmade everything is like put into this you really really have a

00:20:34.160 mass-produced diamond you have a diamond that's carved in a particular way set in a brooch that

00:20:39.720 you know who made that brooch based on the way it looks. People who are making like fine silks

00:20:45.760 are sewing their initials of their factory into the weave of the silk. Like everything is super

00:20:52.480 bespoke. So it's really hard if you're just your standard thief who ran into a store and grabbed

00:20:56.860 the thing. You can't then go to someone and say, hey, you want to buy this thing that's clearly

00:21:00.480 stolen? You need someone who knows how to get it and make sure that no one can trace it before.

00:21:06.220 so like money laundering but with objects okay okay wow i didn't know the thing with the silk

00:21:13.480 that's bananas but makes sense and yeah it's not just like today it's like i'm just gonna rip out

00:21:18.800 this tag and say like oh yeah it's a chanel purse or whatever exactly yeah take the ink tag off it's

00:21:23.260 fine like no no no you can't you you've got to have a team to make sure no one can find this

00:21:27.940 stuff okay and i presume she has a team she will get a team pretty soon she's gonna assemble a team

00:21:33.700 She starts small, like individual thief to thief. 1.00

00:21:37.040 Then she starts making money.

00:21:38.800 And once you start making money, you think, OK, how am I going to escalate this situation?

00:21:44.560 She reminds me a lot of Madame Tussauds, actually, because she has business sense like nobody else.

00:21:51.540 Yeah, this is working.

00:21:52.920 And she's like, I need to set up an operation. 0.57

00:21:55.880 so her first stop is to buy a dry goods store which is like you you know like the old-timey

00:22:03.100 general stores you can go in and buy like a bag of flour and a bar of soap and like they'll take

00:22:08.100 it off the shelves for you she's like a little little house in the prairie little store sort

00:22:12.760 of thing exactly like if you need a ball of twine and some loose oats that's where you go 0.95

00:22:17.260 and she owns the well she leases the building at first because she's like lived in america for 1.00

00:22:24.600 five years she doesn't have that much money but she uses this as a shop where she sells mostly

00:22:29.460 legal things but sometimes a really really nice piece of fabric that maybe you're getting a very

00:22:37.180 good price on because it's not altogether legal so she's kind of blending in like you can come in

00:22:42.760 here and get your groceries but if you're here on a tuesday you could probably get like a small

00:22:47.920 collection of diamonds that i may have stolen from someone yeah yeah yeah and i love like 1.00

00:22:54.540 with Madame Tussauds that's a great comparison because just people who women specifically who

00:22:59.880 are have this business sense and it's so natural like today people like you get a business coach

00:23:05.820 or you get you watch the master class or like you know like people don't just to have these skills

00:23:11.880 to just invent this way of being is really impressive to me that I seems like you haven't

00:23:18.700 mentioned any sort of mentor like she's just figuring this out yeah she's just she's like I

00:23:24.160 see a business opportunity and i took that opportunity and then i took that opportunity

00:23:28.380 and i built on it to make something even better and what's just so good for her at this point

00:23:34.180 is like gilded age new york city is such a lawless place that not only is nobody getting in her way

00:23:42.620 but people are like willing to go to her she becomes like famous for her ability to facilitate

00:23:50.580 this kind of crime is there i don't know if this is coming up in your notes or not but um

00:23:55.300 in this sort of situation i would imagine she needs to be friendly with local police or

00:24:00.960 authorities or somebody who's going to turn like a blind eye to what she's doing it is and we're

00:24:05.720 going to get into that because she gets so connected to everybody but for for the moment

00:24:12.360 i'm not sure how much into like new york gilded age history you've gotten in previous episodes

00:24:18.780 but this is like tammany hall boss tweed era boss tweed was like one of the more famous corrupt

00:24:25.540 politicians in gilded age new york because he he grafted everything that could be grafted like it

00:24:31.740 was comical the amount of money that he stole from people while being in politics in politics

00:24:36.620 and this is his okay so just like to set the vibe every single person here is corrupt so it's like

00:24:43.040 not a big like she's doing this but it's not she's not doing this in like salt lake city and 0.66

00:24:48.460 it's just like oh my god Mormons are all they're like Herman my pills she's just like she's one of 0.51

00:24:53.300 okay it's that what's that movie Gangs of New York she's just this is Gangs of New York times 0.93

00:24:57.160 this is Gangs of New York is set right now everyone is doing this so no big deal yeah she

00:25:02.360 doesn't stand out yeah yeah well this is a sidebar but this is a you and me episode so there will be

00:25:07.960 sidebars hell yeah um a boss tweed sidebar he became like the I don't know if it was the mayor

00:25:14.540 or the alderman or something of New York,

00:25:16.640 but he started out as a volunteer firefighter

00:25:18.760 and the volunteer firefighters in New York City

00:25:22.040 were corrupt at this point 0.98

00:25:23.400 to like underline how shitty it was. 0.97

00:25:25.960 You would have two different volunteer firefighter

00:25:30.200 like situations, two different organizations

00:25:32.700 that would be competing for the same fires.

00:25:35.080 And so what they would do

00:25:36.100 is they would go set buildings on fire themselves

00:25:38.460 so that they could race their competition to the fire

00:25:41.620 because you got paid by the fire.

00:25:43.380 okay that's the situation this is just i i keep trying to think like what to compare it to but

00:25:50.520 it's just like it is itself it's just like you've really set the scene i'm just like that's what's

00:25:55.540 happening that's where this is and she looks around marm looks around and says yeah i can

00:26:00.460 make this work absolutely yeah yeah it's it's it's similar and it's the same time period is like

00:26:06.760 you know the wild west like when it reminds me one of those sorts of towns but it is new york

00:26:11.360 and that's what it's like.

00:26:12.060 Yes.

00:26:12.540 Yeah.

00:26:13.500 So it's one of those old West towns, 0.96

00:26:15.620 except everyone also has shit tons of money 0.97

00:26:17.480 because it's New York City. 0.96

00:26:18.800 So the stakes are high.

00:26:20.100 And somewhere Cassie, what's her name?

00:26:23.220 Cassie Chadwick.

00:26:24.360 Cassie Chadwick is just kind of being like,

00:26:25.920 do, do, do, I'm just an heiress.

00:26:27.340 And everyone's like, sounds good to me.

00:26:28.520 Okay.

00:26:29.020 Yeah.

00:26:29.260 I mean, if you're not actively lighting a building on fire,

00:26:32.020 this is actually not harming anybody.

00:26:34.380 Yeah.

00:26:34.800 Yeah.

00:26:35.480 Yeah.

00:26:36.020 And so one other cool thing about Varm at this point

00:26:38.560 is that like she's...

00:26:41.360 a pillar of the community in a way at the same time as she's being like the most notorious fence 0.99

00:26:47.920 in new york city because she like you said she needs to get a team of people to help her like 1.00

00:26:52.720 get these identifying marks out of the jewels and out of the silk and whatever and so she's staying 0.83

00:26:57.560 in lower east side little germany and she's hiring immigrants and other jews who have hard

00:27:03.520 time getting jobs and she's like hey you want to come in my workshop and help me sell stolen jewels

00:27:08.480 and the neighborhood is like yeah absolutely this is community development and so like she's

00:27:14.400 helping families people love her her neighbors they're obsessed with her because she's the

00:27:19.780 reason they're able to pay rent because she's given them jobs yeah yeah this is it's it's such

00:27:25.200 a just imagine this kind of like city that's like 100 all criminals yeah and within that 0.85

00:27:32.820 she's like a good one because she's like helping people giving jobs to like new immigrants

00:27:38.380 like yeah yeah the american dream the american dream literally but with crime and before i start 0.99

00:27:46.980 portraying mara mendelbaum as like the the thief with the heart of gold who just wants to help the

00:27:51.740 little guy like there's some of that she also just wants money and nice things yeah yeah like

00:27:56.180 to be clear respect respect yeah yeah which again reminds me of no it's just like cassie chadwick 0.99

00:28:02.760 also who was just like i just want like she when cassie chadwick like again like her contemporaneous 0.89

00:28:09.460 grifter um she was just like i want furs i want diamonds i want to live fancy and it's like

00:28:15.200 nothing wrong with wanting those things absolutely not you you were a peddler in not germany you

00:28:20.560 deserve to have a nice thing so she eventually stops like receiving stolen goods just kind of

00:28:28.460 you know whatever people want to bring to her and she starts going out on commission so thieves 0.97

00:28:34.800 will come to her and say hey i know you give the best price in town for stolen goods what do you

00:28:41.160 want and she starts like hey i would really love you to go into that mansion over there on fifth 0.62

00:28:46.960 avenue and steal that really cool diamond i think that would be great because she probably knows

00:28:51.480 someone who she could sell that specifically to or something so she's sort of like a concierge

00:28:55.480 service of like yeah theft yeah she starts like now she's a commissioning burglar where she's

00:29:01.220 just like hey i i have all the best thieves i am starting to get my my feelers out into society

00:29:08.140 let me do a little matchmaking let me see if i can get this guy over there because i know you're

00:29:12.200 really good at breaking into houses that's a great house let's set this up this is like in 1.00

00:29:16.840 terms of her just like natural business ability like just the ability another person might be 0.99

00:29:22.960 like you know what i'm the greatest fence in new york city the end but she's just like how can i 0.97

00:29:27.800 grow my business more bespoke feet like thefts like the fact that she kept thinking of new ways

00:29:35.700 to expand is impressive to me yeah she's not done yet with this is phase two of like seven

00:29:41.060 but at this point like now that she's kind of commissioning stuff she's rolling in money now

00:29:49.800 like she's modern day millionaire she now owns 40 houses and warehouses across the city of new 1.00

00:29:57.560 york and also into new jersey and she's using them as like stopping places for her stolen goods so 0.99

00:30:04.920 like you take a theft in boston she's got a warehouse in boston where you can come and like

00:30:08.960 take care of the stuff and sell it off so she's she's getting an empire yeah my gosh it's like 0.50

00:30:15.420 underground railroad but for jewels yeah and it a lot of it is jewels she liked to specialize in

00:30:23.460 silk and diamonds because she's a girl's girl and she wants to look incredible yeah yeah i think you

00:30:30.820 have in your notes that she would she would like some of the stuff she would you know resell and

00:30:34.740 some of it she just keep for herself because she likes a nice this is really nice actually so i'm

00:30:38.400 going to keep this silk and make myself the best dress you've ever seen out of it the rest of it

00:30:42.580 all sound. Yeah. But she wasn't picky. She would fence anything that would make her money. I wrote

00:30:49.280 down two of my favorite examples. One of them was a herd of goats that escaped during the Chicago

00:30:55.000 fire. She fenced those. This is Catalina de Arousa vibes. Exactly. Yeah. Like a herd of

00:31:03.020 four-legged things. I don't know how it happened. I don't know what she was doing in Chicago,

00:31:08.920 though but legend has it there were wild goats and she turned them into money and she's like

00:31:14.760 I can fence these yeah yeah okay sure I got this my other favorite was uh 40 boxes full of 50,000

00:31:21.340 cigars which I just thought was good well and I'm just picturing like Tammany Hall and these guys

00:31:26.960 like I'm sure they're like chain smoking cigars all day like she's like you want some more cigars

00:31:31.960 that you can smoke while you do crime i have some of those fantastic so um business opportunity

00:31:41.400 number three at this point and i want to preface this by saying that margalite fox's book says

00:31:46.740 this is probably apocryphal this this story i'm about to tell probably didn't actually happen like

00:31:50.920 this however it's the best story and you know how i approach history so i don't care i want to tell

00:31:56.540 anyway um but legend has it that marm mandelbaum wanted to cement her legacy as like the crime

00:32:06.520 boss of new york and so she opened a school called marm's grand street school where if you wanted to

00:32:13.680 be a thief or a pickpocket or a burglar you could enroll in this school and take lessons from marm

00:32:19.420 and she would teach you how to be the best thief in new york what i everything about this is amazing

00:32:26.080 And it's kind of Fagan energy to bring it back to your book.

00:32:30.300 But also I feel like there's a kind of person who would open a school like this and actually

00:32:36.040 do it.

00:32:36.440 And there's a kind of person who would say they're opening a school like this, take the

00:32:39.200 tuition and then not actually teach anybody.

00:32:41.460 And I feel like even though the story is maybe made up, she's the sort of person who would

00:32:44.760 teach people.

00:32:45.860 She would.

00:32:46.540 She's, this is not like a Trump University scenario.

00:32:49.220 No.

00:32:49.880 And what, what Margot Lee Fox did say is, was there a school with a sign on it that said

00:32:54.580 marm mendelbaum school for criminals no probably not and i'll allow that but she definitely had

00:33:00.440 protégés like that we do know for a fact people would kind of come up in new york criminal society

00:33:07.120 under her way and much like yes fagan much like fain and how and the artful dodger etc the plot 1.00

00:33:15.800 of oliver exclamation point exactly yeah her artful dodger marm's artful dodger was a woman

00:33:22.140 named sophie levy who like came in she brought her husband with her ned levy and they were like 0.95

00:33:28.160 we want to be kind of a young hot crime couple and mom was like yeah absolutely come work with

00:33:33.600 me you guys can use that i can use a young hot couple yeah so sophie would go on to be like the 0.71

00:33:40.140 most famous lady pickpocket in new york city and this time and for a while i thought i was going 1.00

00:33:46.080 to talk about her on this episode because she's so cool she like goes and disguises all over new 1.00

00:33:52.820 york and like robs people with her cool husband um and then the cool thing that sophie does i don't 0.98

00:34:00.400 know if it's real or if it's a scam but in like the 1870s 1880s she makes this big show of giving 0.96

00:34:07.240 up crime and going straight she's like no no no crime is bad we shouldn't do it and she writes

00:34:12.640 a memoir called why crime doesn't pay and it's a long it's like 400 pages of all of the criminals

00:34:19.520 that she knew and all of the crime they used to get up to and it's she makes millions off of this

00:34:24.960 book so clearly crime pays for her because she's made a whole business out of it writing a memoir

00:34:32.840 that and that's like a lola montez energy of just being like how like i'm notorious great how can i

00:34:39.080 make money out and people to this day are still i work in a public library and every month it's

00:34:45.280 just like who's writing a memoir now okay yeah so it's a tried and true way to make money once

00:34:52.660 you've kind of like finished whatever your grift was you were doing yeah write a book yeah write a

00:34:56.860 book she thrived um she dies young and horribly in a violent crime so that's why we're not talking

00:35:03.220 about her because i wanted the story that was more fun but she is very cool well i picture marum was

00:35:08.360 like born 65 years old yes but she also lives at a decent length so like everybody life yeah

00:35:18.540 non-spoiler warning this story does not end with a violent death no home invasion okay no all good

00:35:27.060 yes no so she's working up her proteges in new york yeah she's also like making enemies with

00:35:35.760 rival fences and gangs of thieves because she's so much better at this yeah daniel day lewis

00:35:40.980 daniel day lewis with his hat yeah exactly um her enemy was a man called traveling mike grady

00:35:47.820 no ran the grady gang traveling mike i only brought it up because it has bush ranger energy

00:35:54.360 and i just like wanted to bring it does traveling mike you know what i was thinking of ned kelly a

00:36:00.120 little bit when you're describing some of this because marm just like had much more savvy than

00:36:05.840 ned kelly did for instance yeah ned kelly wanted to be criminal with heart of gold but he was

00:36:11.760 criminal heart of gold no business sense yeah yeah he's bringing like a himbo energy to it

00:36:18.260 and marm is bringing this like cut like just the whole like the fact she's called marm and she has 0.96

00:36:23.580 these kids it's just like like i'm sure you know people like this everybody knows people like this

00:36:27.460 just like a woman who runs her household where you're just like my god like if you were president

00:36:32.780 of the world like yeah everything would run so somebody's just like you have soccer practice

00:36:37.420 you have dance practice like we're going to this recital it's just like oh what was her name on um

00:36:42.060 desperate housewives brie um that character who is just like wow like you're so organized and what

00:36:50.060 you do with it is be like the most efficient suburban mom and marm is bringing that energy

00:36:55.140 but being the most efficient crime boss on on the east coast and you know she's still talking 1.00

00:37:02.980 to all of her kids like and also did you brush your teeth tonight because i will know if you did 1.00

00:37:07.500 yeah exactly exactly fabulous um one other reason fun fact she was called mar mendelbaum is not just 1.00

00:37:14.760 because she had four kids of her own but because she treated all of her thieves like her kids she 1.00

00:37:19.900 was like the crime mom boss yeah so like if one of her thieves that she commissioned to go out 1.00

00:37:25.640 and steal something were to get arrested in the middle of the job she was always there to bail 0.99

00:37:30.260 them out she would she would pay the bail and she'd be like you'll get me on the next one it's

00:37:34.760 fine yeah so like everyone was so loyal to her too because they knew she's got my back she's giving

00:37:40.500 me the best price so she pretty much had set up this crime empire where no one was going to betray

00:37:45.640 her because she they don't have better options and she's like in this context to be clear 1.00

00:37:52.460 she's like a good boss yeah in the context of like working for various criminals in new york's 0.95

00:37:59.320 lower east side like she's this is this is the boss you want yeah she's very efficient she's

00:38:05.480 very profitable and she's cutting you a fair deal i mean yeah you can't knock that yeah um my notes 0.99

00:38:11.720 at this point say, I have to go on a sidebar about her insane lawyers. So I hope that's okay

00:38:17.460 because I love her lawyers. Um, Mara Mandelbaum had two lawyers on permanent retainer. So they 1.00

00:38:24.900 were always working for her all the time because she was constantly in trouble with the law.

00:38:29.960 Um, she paid them $5,000 a year in 1880s money. Old timey's money. That must be like 5 million 0.89

00:38:37.260 or something today and it was worth it because these were the most criminal criminal lawyers

00:38:44.180 you've ever heard of in the world they're so great yeah yeah um it's the law firm of howe and hummel

00:38:50.540 and um i have in my notes they are at the pt barnum of gilded age lawyers um they literally

00:38:57.580 represented pt barnum in all of his lawsuits so okay so literally literally they're like their

00:39:03.560 specialty is circus performers and criminals which is just like fabulous this is this is you

00:39:11.300 know if they would have ads on daytime tv this is if we don't win your case it's free like that's

00:39:17.160 that's these guys yeah they did the equivalent of that but what they the way that they win

00:39:22.200 is that like i said the most corrupt lawyers in the world they're bribing every judge in town

00:39:27.220 They've bribed every jury who's ever juried.

00:39:30.120 They're paying the police directly.

00:39:33.100 So Marm knows, okay, I hired Howe and Hummel.

00:39:36.280 Doesn't matter what they catch me with.

00:39:38.000 I'm going to get off.

00:39:39.500 But my favorite thing about these lawyers is that they published a book in like the 1870s.

00:39:45.980 The book is titled Danger!

00:39:49.760 Much like Oliver!

00:39:52.040 Yeah, yeah.

00:39:52.600 It's fun.

00:39:53.340 And the point of the book Danger is the two lawyers describe every crime that could possibly

00:40:00.620 happen to you in New York City.

00:40:02.900 And the ostensible purpose of this is, look at all of these crimes.

00:40:08.060 We know about them.

00:40:09.320 We can protect you from them.

00:40:11.000 We're good people and lawyers.

00:40:12.640 But what the book actually is, is a book for people who want to do crime because they describe

00:40:19.060 in great detail for 500 pages.

00:40:22.320 Here's the best way to rob a shop.

00:40:24.440 Here's the best way to rob somebody on the bus.

00:40:27.120 Here's a cool way to break into a bank.

00:40:29.140 Like, it's incredible.

00:40:31.220 This is, it's so, yet again,

00:40:34.360 like this just feels like 2025 coded.

00:40:37.460 Like somebody would,

00:40:39.380 just like coming out with a book like this

00:40:41.120 or the one like Crime Doesn't Pay.

00:40:42.900 It just feels like people,

00:40:44.240 people are exactly like this still now, basically.

00:40:46.920 They sure are.

00:40:48.160 yeah the the lawyer how of how and hummel also was just quite a striking physical figure which

00:40:55.060 i mentioned because it's going to come up later um he's like six and a half feet tall and he

00:41:00.040 would show up in court wearing like bright purple velvet suits like covered in diamonds

00:41:06.440 it's so good yeah yeah you want a corrupt lawyer you got this guy and he would come in and do like

00:41:16.840 what you imagine a corrupt lawyer in the 1880s would do you know like big booming voice dramatic

00:41:23.020 i yeah i challenge everything that's ever happened you know he objects to every he the lawyer sneezes

00:41:30.080 and he objects like it's yeah oh my gosh yeah yeah no everyone i'm picturing is just truly a

00:41:36.920 cartoon character but they all are so yeah this guy in particular yeah attorney how he is drawn

00:41:44.300 in magic marker and i love him so that's her business side of things yeah meanwhile um she's 0.52

00:41:53.960 also making shit tons of money and she's using some of the money to expand her business empire 0.99

00:42:00.620 but she's using the rest of her money to kind of buy your way into new york high society

00:42:06.220 which i love for her yeah yeah so um my point of reference for this is the hbo miniseries

00:42:15.340 the gilded age that includes every non-working broadway actor during covid so yes if you watch

00:42:21.000 that no i haven't i know that there's a character in there who not to say who it is because it'll

00:42:26.700 be spoilery is cassie chadwick at one point um what i'm picturing is kathy bates in titanic

00:42:35.380 Yes.

00:42:36.340 That is.

00:42:36.640 Just kind of like a working class person amongst these people who were born into wealth.

00:42:42.400 Yeah. 0.79

00:42:42.960 What she ends up kind of doing is setting up like her equivalent of the HBO, the Gilded

00:42:47.760 Age dinner party situation. 0.61

00:42:50.380 Like you can picture a Downton Abbey party and she's setting it up. 0.82

00:42:53.140 But in her apartment on the Lower East Side in Little Germany, she's making her own fancy

00:42:58.960 salon and she's inviting people from like Central Park.

00:43:04.560 area she's inviting your rockefellers she's inviting yeah and they're coming they're coming 0.52

00:43:10.120 to dinner because she's so rich oh okay okay yeah and she's she like lives above the shop 0.98

00:43:19.240 the dry goods shop where she got her start fencing she's got an apartment above with 0.99

00:43:23.100 her husband and kids and they describe her apartment as the lower east side versailles 0.78

00:43:29.820 oh my god okay she's rich but comma and tacky i'm she's rich and tacky yes yeah yeah um she 0.98

00:43:39.760 herself striking figure she's like six foot two she's 250 pounds and she is at any given moment 1.00

00:43:49.720 wearing 40 000 worth of diamonds i was picturing her very short this whole time but she's tall 0.96

00:43:57.980 that's even more interesting yeah okay yeah she's commanding when she walks into this is like movie 0.69

00:44:04.380 version gwendoline christie but a jewish actress yeah but like that's that's the stature we're 0.98

00:44:10.740 picturing okay oh my gosh you're like oh fuck you're in charge yeah yeah yeah yeah okay and 0.98

00:44:18.100 so she's having these lavish dinner parties in her in her home with her gilded furniture and 0.99

00:44:23.660 everything but she's also tricked out this house to be like the perfect criminal lair of all time 0.75

00:44:30.860 okay i was gonna say like it's interesting that she stayed living above the dry goods shop but

00:44:35.460 of course she did because what you're about to explain because i don't know what you're gonna

00:44:38.740 say but i'm picturing a bookshelf and you pull out a book and then behind that is a secret escape

00:44:44.280 tunnel or something no but literally okay okay so there's i'm gonna go through um a floor plan

00:44:52.240 of the house. The book I cited literally has a floor plan with little drawings in it. It's

00:44:56.320 fantastic. But the front of it is the dry goods shop. That's like mostly legal business. But

00:45:01.640 right behind the counter is this little people. And behind the people, she has her secret parlor 0.96

00:45:08.600 where she sits because she doesn't go out and do the business anymore. She's too rich. She's 1.00

00:45:13.200 too in charge. But she'll sit there and watch her associates through the little people do the 0.99

00:45:18.000 business so that she can come out and stop them if anything is going bad and she can keep an eye 1.00

00:45:22.680 on the law so she's got her own little secret watch room yeah and then in her like sitting 0.85

00:45:28.420 room in the living quarters this is my favorite part of her house is that she's got a fireplace 0.99

00:45:33.020 with a standard chimney in it but the chimney has a fake front to it so you could pull down 0.82

00:45:39.160 like a screen in front of the chimney and when you do that there's a little elevator behind it

00:45:43.900 like a little dumbwaiter in the chimney no yes a secret dumbwaiter in the chimney my god so if

00:45:50.960 the cops are coming and she's like etching the marks out of the jewels and the cops come in 0.99

00:45:55.140 she's like fuck i put it in my secret chimney elevator and all the jewels go up in the chimney 0.82

00:46:00.000 everything's fine i have had i don't think i've said this on the podcast a lifelong fascination 1.00

00:46:07.440 with dumbwaiters. Dumbwaiters are my favorite thing. Like I read about them and like, I used

00:46:13.660 to read a lot of like children's books about people in old haunted houses meeting ghosts or

00:46:17.780 whatever. And there's always a scene where a little kid has to escape in a dumbwaiter. And

00:46:21.540 I was just like, oh, dumbwaiters are the coolest thing I've ever heard. There's like an old mansion

00:46:26.140 where I grew up that you would go on class visits. And I'm just like, there's a dumbwaiter. And I'm 0.90

00:46:30.200 just like, I, a little kid would escape in that dumbwaiter. One of the libraries, one of the

00:46:34.520 libraries in saskatoon where i live has a dumbwaiter and the first time i went to that

00:46:38.140 library i was like a dumbwaiter and i was losing my mind and they're all like yeah we put the books 0.71

00:46:43.040 in it to go to the basement i'm like you don't understand you don't understand it's a dumbwaiter

00:46:46.580 so the fact that she has a secret dumbwaiter is everything to me but also that's really smart

00:46:52.420 it's so smart yeah just like it's giving sweeney todd's machine to like the chair with the bodies

00:47:00.500 away yeah yeah yeah it's that but yeah not non-murderous okay okay so secret chimney

00:47:08.120 dumbwaiter elevator yes okay she also literally has secret passages in the basement that go into

00:47:15.680 the house next door so if the cops come she can sneak down through the basement and open the other

00:47:20.000 house leave through the back door no one's ever gonna know she was there this is i can't i love

00:47:26.060 this like just everything about this i didn't realize until this moment how much i love secret

00:47:32.100 passageways but the fact that she had them like why would she ever move like this whole house 1.00

00:47:38.620 you know she had those built custom that did not come with the dry goods store she had to hire a 1.00

00:47:43.960 construction crew of german jewish immigrants from the lower east side to build a secret passage into 1.00

00:47:49.740 the next house i feel like and on her like retainer she has like you know like a magician

00:47:53.880 or something where she's just like, what is the best way? And he's like, oh, I did this trick back

00:47:58.100 in Germany where I was a peddler magician. So do you know the story, the, or the book,

00:48:03.220 The Devil in the White City about like H.H. Holmes and the murder palace? This is like the delightful

00:48:08.000 reverse of that, where he was building the hotel to secretly murder people. And she's just building

00:48:13.400 this like Uncle Scrooge level, like, although she's now the Uncle Scrooge. I presume one of

00:48:19.860 these buildings is full of coins for her to swim around in oh my gosh this whole thing is literally

00:48:25.440 a bugs bunny cartoon and i'm living this i know and i like this brief pause like you can imagine

00:48:34.200 how the press handled this incredibly rich jewish woman living in an immigrant neighborhood

00:48:41.500 swimming in piles of coins like this is an anti-semitic stereotype but i like you can

00:48:47.080 imagine the way that society responds to this is one of two ways one look at those jews look at

00:48:54.100 what they look at what they're doing and the other i love her i would do anything for her

00:48:57.780 so there's some of that going on yeah yeah this is incredible okay okay just briefly you said

00:49:06.500 she had like magicians on retainers she does not have magicians on retainer but she did have

00:49:10.640 a dozen german jewish immigrant silversmiths who worked in her house taking um initials and

00:49:18.320 engravings out of pocket watches so did you see um the ocean oceans eight the like the oceans 11 0.99

00:49:24.440 but for ladies mindy kaling's character she was like worked for a jewelry family and then she 1.00

00:49:29.780 would take the jewels out of the settings and make them like turn the necklace into earrings 0.99

00:49:33.560 and then you could sell the earrings so i picture like this is the sort of stuff they're doing yeah

00:49:36.540 yeah yeah and that was the movie with the jean de lamotte necklace in it right yes you know what

00:49:43.140 this also has this is like jean de lamotte is the spiritual ancestor of all of this i think

00:49:48.660 if she could have gotten to new york cité oh she would have loved it there oh man this is incredible

00:49:55.140 this is great but also thank you for pointing out the way that some people would treat this

00:50:00.840 like with the anti-semitism that i presume was rampant in new york at the time later in the in

00:50:08.940 the downside of the story but right now we're still pretty much on top of the world yeah okay

00:50:13.360 and she is she's she's the queen of new york oh what's that song from newsies

00:50:17.760 she's the queen of new york she sure is um i'm picturing i'm picturing i don't know

00:50:24.880 somehow i think there's like newsies are involved in this or like just

00:50:29.280 young boys on the street being like extra extra marm mandelbaum like she does it again i don't

00:50:37.760 know you know who would work for marm mandelbaum spot connor i bet he did he did that was his boss

00:50:45.340 brooklyn okay yes okay so last sort of a side anecdote before we get into an actual event in

00:50:53.460 her life and that's i want to talk briefly about the kind of parties that she was giving at her

00:50:58.020 these like fancy parties for the fancy rich people fancy parties because they were mostly

00:51:02.980 fancy parties but mar mandelbaum was a woman of the world and so she knew everybody and so the

00:51:09.460 kind of people who were being invited to these fancy society parties there's like three groups 1.00

00:51:13.580 of people who would show up one of them is the fancy rich ladies from uptown who wanted to see 1.00

00:51:19.820 this rich lady in her cool house and like we'll we'll allow her into our circle because she's got 1.00

00:51:25.420 money part two is all of her friends who are thieves and burglars and so they're sitting at 1.00

00:51:32.540 the same dinner table with these fancy people and part three is the cops because she's inviting 0.96

00:51:40.500 the cops to her party yeah when you were saying she's probably bribing cops to look the other way 1.00

00:51:47.680 not only is she bribing cops she's inviting them to dinner they're hanging out next to her thieves

00:51:52.740 and sometimes she's like hey cop you know the law really well do you want to help me steal

00:51:58.920 something and the cops are like yeah absolutely i will help you steal something just everyone

00:52:03.620 this is it's i'm sure there's going to be inevitable drama coming up but it's just this 0.79

00:52:09.860 like beautiful utopia of thieves like corrupt politicians corrupt cops like she's just

00:52:17.860 fostered this environment where just kind of like everyone everyone just like it's they're

00:52:22.400 She's all here for a good time.

00:52:23.320 They're all working together.

00:52:24.360 It's just, it's beautiful.

00:52:26.100 Yes, it's lovely.

00:52:28.580 And many people would be satisfied

00:52:31.280 without that level of success in Utopia,

00:52:34.020 but not Marm.

00:52:34.320 She's never satisfied, yeah.

00:52:35.880 Like in Hamilton, yes.

00:52:38.240 Much like in Hamilton.

00:52:39.800 Yeah.

00:52:40.440 Because in 1869,

00:52:42.320 it becomes time for Marm to escalate 0.98

00:52:45.420 her criminal empire into a section 1.00

00:52:47.880 I have called Rob That Bank Part 1. 1.00

00:52:52.400 Part one.

00:52:53.580 OK, OK.

00:52:54.140 It's time for bank robbery time.

00:52:56.720 It's amazing.

00:52:58.480 Another interesting thing I learned while researching this story is that bank robberies

00:53:03.140 weren't really a thing very much until about the Civil War era in America.

00:53:08.340 And that's because before this time, there wasn't any paper money.

00:53:12.860 Everyone had coins and like bags of gold.

00:53:16.880 You know, what's really hard to escape from a heist with is a giant bag of gold.

00:53:21.580 Fair.

00:53:22.400 Yeah. Okay. But like Civil War era, we just started using paper money 20 years ago. You

00:53:27.540 can suddenly steal millions of dollars. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So she's got the idea. I know

00:53:33.140 all of these thieves. The Ocean National Bank is down the street. I'm going to put a heist team

00:53:39.220 together and rob the Ocean National Bank. Wait, it's called the Ocean National Bank?

00:53:44.000 Yes. So this is like Ocean's One. It's Ocean's One. I didn't even think about that. You're so

00:53:50.700 right yeah this is like steven soderbergh like this is your prequel it's right here and it's a

00:53:57.440 great heist story so i'm gonna walk you through the ocean national bank heist yeah because we

00:54:02.900 know everything about it um and marm is behind the whole thing she decides who she wants to go

00:54:09.480 in and lead the actual heist team because she's not doing that she's she's a pillar of the

00:54:14.800 community she's not going in she's watching it all through a pinhole in the wall just being like

00:54:18.540 Yeah, that's good. That's good. Yeah.

00:54:21.140 So she gets a man named George White to be in charge of the heist.

00:54:24.920 And I wrote down this sentence about George White just because I really liked it.

00:54:29.020 George White was a Massachusetts hotel keeper who, in 1864, became accidentally embroiled in a bank heist and afterward deliberately embroiled himself in many more bank heists.

00:54:43.060 You know what? We love an entrepreneurial king.

00:54:45.620 yeah you know it's like you don't know you have a talent for something until you do it

00:54:49.240 once by accident yeah and then you do it on purpose that's what dolly parton says i think

00:54:53.020 exactly he was the dolly parton of his age yeah so he gets some accomplices together and they

00:55:01.180 start to kind of case the joint and so what they do is white keeps making deposits in the thing so

00:55:07.400 he's getting his own account there with his own money and as he's this is stolen money from other

00:55:12.660 heists so like yeah yeah marm is helping him do this yeah and meanwhile every time he goes in he

00:55:18.460 starts like schmoozing with the bank president he's making good friends with this guy and asking

00:55:22.760 him to dinner and taking him out for one too many drinks and asking him questions like what kind of

00:55:29.180 safe do you use in your bank and can you describe the safe in more detail do you know what is the

00:55:34.440 combination yeah yeah exactly and then white gets all of this information and uh he also gets

00:55:42.440 a corrupt bank teller on the inside to give him some help and they take all of this blueprints

00:55:49.340 and information back to marm's warehouse on the lower east side have you ever seen the movie

00:55:55.260 i mean aside but the sting no like you've never seen the sting it's one of my favorite movies

00:56:03.620 um it's paul newman and robert redford in the 70s peak hotness for both men

00:56:08.840 and they're playing um con artists in i forget if it's it might be chicago

00:56:15.480 or it might be new york cité anyway but they're playing con artists in the 1920s

00:56:20.260 and the whole thing is just about them putting together a heist where they pretend to be running

00:56:24.580 a racetrack gambling operation and when they're assembling the team of who's gonna do this

00:56:29.780 it's just like we need to get you know sneaky dan collins and we need like everyone has a name it's

00:56:36.480 just like fish eyes mccoy like we need to get all these guys and then the way that they like let the

00:56:41.920 guys know like there's a new heist it's just like you go to a place the hotel where you know he is

00:56:45.420 and the one guy just goes like like touches his nose with his finger and then the guy's like

00:56:50.000 touches his nose with his finger and that means they know it's like okay we're going to meet

00:56:52.860 tonight at 7 p.m at the headquarters like that's how they get the team together and i'm just

00:56:56.360 picturing that for marm for this i bet you that's what it is she's got a little signal she's got 0.53

00:57:01.480 something but the incredible thing she does because she doesn't do anything halfway she prepares 0.94

00:57:07.160 she is a woman with a plan and she is going to execute that plan so she has all of the bank 0.88

00:57:13.920 robbers after they get all these blueprints from the bank they come back to her warehouse

00:57:17.260 and they go in the basement and they build an exact replica of the bank vault in the basement

00:57:24.620 of her house to like to like rehearse yes and they rehearse for months

00:57:28.780 this is the greatest story i've ever heard like she's so good yeah so once they've run through

00:57:38.460 the sample bank robbery it comes time for the actual day of the bank and once again marm staying

00:57:46.060 at home like the queen she is but the dudes go to the bank they have rented an office in the basement

00:57:53.180 of the bank which i guess was a thing you could do back then um the office they rent is directly

00:57:59.200 beneath the bank vault that they want to rob do they bugs bunny drill a hole in the ceiling

00:58:05.320 he bugs bunny through the ceiling and

00:58:07.780 they so they saw a hole in the ceiling of the office climb up on a table go through

00:58:18.060 the ceiling use their tools to break into the safe now that they're in the safe room

00:58:24.320 yeah they go there's three safe doors and they let they go through all of them

00:58:29.200 and then they steal in olden day money 768 thousand dollars they get into their getaway

00:58:38.940 carriage and they drive off into the night and they get away with all of it because there's not

00:58:44.860 cars because there's not cars and they they took a weekend to do this because they went in on a

00:58:51.320 friday night after the bank had closed and then they went for two full days to work on the safe

00:58:56.980 and work on all of the little deposit boxes inside of the safe to get as much as they could and then

00:59:02.540 they just walked out and left and had all the money and marm who had set the whole thing up

00:59:09.580 do you want to know what percentage she gave the thieves and what percentage she kept for herself

00:59:14.500 oh just tell me because i'm sure it'll be 10 i was gonna say 90 10 it was 90 10 but still 10

00:59:24.060 of 700 000 and old-timey money like that's yeah it was a good deal and like they wouldn't have

00:59:30.440 gotten in without her yeah and yeah they like some of the stuff they got was bank loans so she did

00:59:35.840 have to like fence some of it oh like promissory laundering involved so she did her job yeah yeah

00:59:42.160 yeah 90 10 and then monday morning of course the bankers come in and they're like great scott

00:59:48.940 someone sawed a hole in the floor of my bank vault they're just like oh my god bugs bunny

00:59:53.880 doesn't exist yet so we were unprepared for this exactly yeah and the newspaper goes nuts because

01:00:01.240 no one knows who did it but everyone knows who did it they just they can't pin it on her yeah

01:00:06.400 And the quote in the article that I read that I loved so much was Boss Tweed himself, the

01:00:12.180 most corrupt politician in all of history, said, I couldn't have done it better myself.

01:00:18.220 Which is so good.

01:00:19.980 Incredible.

01:00:20.740 Incredible.

01:00:21.460 What's that?

01:00:21.960 There's a movie that's like, first of all, I just need to really reemphasize to you,

01:00:25.540 you need to watch The Sting.

01:00:26.560 I think you'll really fight with it.

01:00:28.640 The suits that they wear in that are, Edith Head did the costumes, I think.

01:00:33.000 um the suit the three-piece 1920s suits are amazing yes but um there's that movie

01:00:39.460 i forget the name of it but it's like sean connery and katherine zeta jones and they have to like go

01:00:43.740 through the lasers to like get to the safe or just you know the the the trope is like people

01:00:49.540 thing yeah you have to like dance and like slither it's like this is like that but before lasers this

01:00:55.120 is just kind of like all you had to do is like

01:00:56.680 and there you go yeah perfect okay that's amazing and she got away with it clearly

01:01:06.920 she did yeah no problem and now for a quick advertising break sorry investing trading

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01:03:44.760 The next part of my notes is called A Series of Anecdotes, because I knew I had to tell you, particularly, both of these stories, but I couldn't find out where to put them.

01:03:52.840 So this is in the 1870s. 0.92

01:03:55.420 And one of them is a little anecdote I call Mara Mendelbaum Gets Her Fucking Revenge, which I love. 0.97

01:04:02.160 Okay. 0.97

01:04:02.300 So, you know, she had been training thieves all over the city, and one of the thieves that she used to work with was a woman known as Black Lena Kleinschmidt, which I love a criminal name. Fantastic. They had been, like, besties, because it was two German Jewish ladies doing crime. 0.89

01:04:20.180 but then lena signs up with a rival crime syndicate and now she's working with the enemy 0.97

01:04:26.380 might have been traveling mike grady or whatever yeah yeah mom decides no no no no no one betrays

01:04:33.060 me no one does this so she sends one of her student pickpockets to the high society event

01:04:42.180 that lena is hosting at her beautiful house and has this pickpocket steal an emerald ring

01:04:49.380 from one of the guests at the party.

01:04:52.260 This pickpocket then takes it back to Marm

01:04:54.700 and Marm sends this ring to Lena with a little note

01:04:58.280 that says, a gift from your best friend, Marm Mandelbaum.

01:05:02.880 I hope you wear this wherever you go.

01:05:05.800 And Lena says, oh, that's so nice.

01:05:07.960 Thanks, we must be good and puts the ring on.

01:05:10.820 And then she wears it to her next society party 0.94

01:05:13.340 where the person she stole it from is attending.

01:05:16.400 And the guy who got his ring stolen is like, 0.99

01:05:19.380 Bitch, that's my ring. 0.99

01:05:20.700 What do you mean? 1.00

01:05:21.860 And hires a private detective to catch Lena, who gets sent to prison for stealing the ring.

01:05:28.580 Oh, it's beautiful.

01:05:29.920 And that is affair of the necklace.

01:05:32.000 Yes.

01:05:32.680 Level.

01:05:33.800 Sending a note, even.

01:05:35.400 Like, this is very, oh, beautiful, beautiful.

01:05:38.380 Yeah. 1.00

01:05:39.180 You just imagine her mom sitting at home being like, and that's what you get for messing with me, the baddest bitch in New York City. 1.00

01:05:46.980 The second story, and this is my personal favorite. 1.00

01:05:49.380 is everyone knew about Barham.

01:05:52.560 She was infamous at this point.

01:05:54.920 And so somebody wrote a play

01:05:56.480 that was supposed to be based on her life.

01:05:58.540 It was called The Two Orphans.

01:06:01.120 And it's an absolute classic Charles Dickens knockoff

01:06:05.220 about this sad girl who ends up on the streets

01:06:08.600 and gets taken into this criminal syndicate 1.00

01:06:11.380 run by a hideous, old, tall Jewish crime boss 0.98

01:06:15.540 who was referred to as Lafrochard. 0.99

01:06:19.380 Because it was set in France.

01:06:20.800 I don't know what that is.

01:06:22.060 Oh, okay, okay.

01:06:22.480 But that was her crime name.

01:06:24.000 And so everyone knew, okay, that character is a caricature of Marm Mandelbaum.

01:06:29.560 It was like the old evil witch character.

01:06:32.780 And so Marm says, you know what?

01:06:35.420 I want to go see this play.

01:06:36.860 And so she gets decked up in her silk and her $40,000 worth of diamonds.

01:06:42.700 And she goes, she gets a private box just for herself.

01:06:45.660 And she makes sure everybody watches as she goes into her box and watches this play.

01:06:50.620 And after the play, she goes up to the owner of the theater and gestures at her incredible

01:06:57.160 outfit and then says, quote, look at me.

01:07:00.820 I am Madame Mendelbaum. 1.00

01:07:02.720 Does that hussy look anything like me? 0.74

01:07:08.660 May we all be that cool someday. 0.98

01:07:12.520 Oh, amazing.

01:07:13.740 Amazing.

01:07:14.580 I was going to, and I'm going to guess, I don't know if this is in the story, but she

01:07:17.920 somehow figured out that she would get 90% of the proceeds from the ticket sales of the

01:07:21.600 play. 0.99

01:07:22.120 She probably did.

01:07:23.920 Yeah, yeah.

01:07:25.500 Ugh.

01:07:26.560 Okay.

01:07:27.160 So we're in the mid-1870s at this point.

01:07:30.720 Wolf Mandelbaum, remember him?

01:07:32.360 Her husband?

01:07:32.780 Oh, husband.

01:07:33.820 Yeah, yeah.

01:07:34.700 He dies in 1875, and she never marries again.

01:07:38.280 Yeah.

01:07:39.300 So I have no idea what was going on in that marriage.

01:07:42.200 He is literally almost never mentioned.

01:07:44.100 but and she's like i think in this time and place like being a married woman would have been

01:07:51.140 important just societally for people to accept her in a certain way and then being a widow i

01:07:56.960 think is also so i think he served his role of just sort of like allowing her to become

01:08:00.820 mrs mendelbaum yes much like madame tussaud's husband was just kind of existed to make her

01:08:08.760 Madame Tussauds.

01:08:10.400 Yeah.

01:08:10.700 That seems to have been his role.

01:08:12.360 Thanks, Wolf.

01:08:12.880 He clearly didn't get in her way.

01:08:14.660 And I mean, why would he?

01:08:16.160 Like, he would have...

01:08:16.820 This is going great for him.

01:08:19.200 Yeah.

01:08:19.880 And if you cross her, you know what happens.

01:08:21.560 He knows what happens.

01:08:23.120 I like to imagine that he was just delighted that she was happy and he was a real wife

01:08:28.160 guy.

01:08:28.580 That's what I imagine Wolfman the mom to be. 0.92

01:08:30.380 I have no proof, but I imagine him being like, hey, that's my wife.

01:08:34.560 Isn't she amazing?

01:08:36.280 How was your day, honey?

01:08:37.640 Yeah.

01:08:38.380 I committed so many crimes.

01:08:40.960 And they'll be like, that's nice.

01:08:42.240 I got this fish half price today.

01:08:45.200 That's exactly what I'm picturing.

01:08:46.860 I made you supper.

01:08:48.120 Yeah.

01:08:48.560 Thanks. 0.98

01:08:49.040 Yeah, you know she wasn't cooking. 0.99

01:08:50.500 She had business to do. 1.00

01:08:52.000 Yeah.

01:08:52.620 Okay.

01:08:53.560 So, 1878.

01:08:55.780 Mom, now a widow, is like, remember that time I robbed a bank? 1.00

01:08:59.080 That went really well. 0.99

01:09:00.300 I think I'm going to rob another bank.

01:09:02.140 And so, this brings us to the section of my notes called Rob That Bank Part 2.

01:09:05.660 and this time she's going for the big bank this is the manhattan savings institution

01:09:11.820 which is now hsbc bank okay real big um and for this she calls in a new team of people

01:09:20.680 because it's been about 10 years since the last bank robbery and the leader of this new heist

01:09:26.600 is a guy named george leonidas leslie and he's a wait his last name is leslie it is

01:09:35.320 that is one of the names in my ancestry so i'm just going to picture this is a 0.87

01:09:39.880 relative of mine well like for better or worse he might be a shitty dirtbag so just picture like an 0.85

01:09:46.860 old-timey red-haired guy with a mustache yeah perfect um he was apparently really hot and 0.88

01:09:52.280 everyone was in love with him so that's my ancestor yeah yeah the other thing he used to do

01:09:57.900 um he was so good at robberies and break-ins and stuff that eventually he put out like his little

01:10:04.260 shingle as a quote unquote consulting burglar. So incredible. So when people were setting up a

01:10:11.400 heist in like Omaha, Nebraska, they'd be like, I need to bring in a consultant. And so they would

01:10:16.220 bring in Leslie and he would help them come up with a plan and they would pay him like 20% of

01:10:20.560 whatever they get out of the bank heist he helped them set up. And then he would head out. I don't

01:10:25.200 see anything wrong with this guy at this point. Okay. Absolutely not. He, when I say he was a

01:10:30.320 fuck boy. I mean, he couldn't stop sleeping with other people's wives. So that's going on. 1.00

01:10:35.080 Respect. Yeah. Keep that in mind. He's hot. He's got a plan. I'm on his side thus far. Okay.

01:10:42.200 There are two other people involved in this group. There's more than that,

01:10:45.400 but there's two with names I wanted to tell you. One of them is John Nugent, who's better known as

01:10:51.680 police officer John Nugent in charge of the 18th Precinct of Manhattan.

01:10:55.820 Okay. Yeah. That helps. It's a long nickname, but yeah.

01:10:59.340 Yeah. The second one, I don't know anything about him except that his name is Banjo Pete Emerson, which you needed to know.

01:11:09.140 Banjo Pete.

01:11:12.680 That's all you need to know.

01:11:14.200 Yeah, that's that's all you got.

01:11:15.920 So on the day of the robbery, Banjo Pete and the police officer and their their people show up in the bank.

01:11:23.900 They they hold the bank teller at gunpoint.

01:11:26.800 This is not a very sophisticated heist.

01:11:29.340 But what they do have is they have Banjo Pete dress up in the bank teller's clothes and stand in the front window so that no one knows that robbery is happening in the back of the bank.

01:11:37.720 That's clever.

01:11:38.880 But also, I imagine he's also playing the banjo.

01:11:41.660 Yes, the whole time.

01:11:45.060 That was his one.

01:11:46.240 He's like, I will do this, but I have to be playing the banjo.

01:11:50.220 It's on my rider.

01:11:51.440 Please don't worry about it.

01:11:52.200 I need to play the soundtrack.

01:11:53.800 and so the cop and everybody else breaks into the bank vault they make off with

01:12:01.660 multiple millions of dollars this is a giant this is the biggest robbery of her career it's not

01:12:08.920 quite as cartoony as the first one but this is where the money comes from the one hiccup in the

01:12:14.500 plan is that consulting burglar george leslie never showed up to the heights never showed up

01:12:19.540 and marm was heartbroken because she thought he was hot and cool and a great consulting burglar

01:12:26.160 and so she's like what happened to him is he okay and so after the heist she starts looking around

01:12:33.060 for him in the city and they find him um shot three times in the back of the head outside of

01:12:41.180 the house of the husband of his mistress so he got caught and he couldn't do the robbery

01:12:47.320 okay i thought he was i was worried that my ancestor was going to turn on her or something 0.99

01:12:53.700 but no he would have been there except he couldn't stop his his fuck boy ways he couldn't he couldn't 0.99

01:12:59.360 she was so sad she's like he was the quote from the book was he was such a nice man 0.99

01:13:04.080 which is what my jewish grandmother would always say so that just made me feel seen

01:13:09.340 r.i.p to to my hot ancestor

01:13:14.400 consulting burglar george leslie

01:13:19.220 okay so that is what was that 1870 and they got away with it again they got away with it yeah okay

01:13:26.860 big success um unfortunately that's the last big success in this story because now we're getting

01:13:32.700 into the slow decline of marvin mendelbaum well and you know no one's story just goes up and up

01:13:39.080 and up and up and up like every naturally there has to be a peak and a valley yeah she's not done

01:13:45.980 being a badass yet so never fear okay okay she does she she's never down she's down but she's

01:13:51.620 never out no okay so um at this point she's been crime boss in new york city for i think it's like

01:13:57.740 30 years she's household name and of course eventually she's gonna trust a thief who can't

01:14:05.760 be trusted and she's going to get the wrong guy on her team and this happens to her in the late

01:14:11.440 1870s it's a guy named michael kurtz um his nickname is sheeny mike uh you should never

01:14:19.280 trust a man whose nickname is a racial slur for jews that's my motto i was gonna ask what what

01:14:24.980 does that mean i've not heard that word before okay yeah no that's so i'm gonna call him mike

01:14:29.760 because that seems better but he's one of her thieves on the payroll and he robs a jewelry

01:14:35.920 store in boston in 1877 and he gets caught so he gets arrested he gets brought back on the train

01:14:43.240 to new york to be tried and marm tries to bail him out of jail like she usually does but it it

01:14:50.120 doesn't work out and she's like okay i have to cut my losses with this guy send him to jail

01:14:54.500 sorry mike i did my best and he spends four years in prison um he would have spent a lot more time

01:15:01.200 in prison interestingly but he got let out on medical release because he kept eating soap

01:15:06.320 and they're like well he keeps throwing up and he's gonna die if he keeps eating soap so i guess

01:15:12.260 we'll let him go i like this era because people could really come up with plans that no one else

01:15:20.620 saw coming and were so confusing that they worked right like whose plan was that but i can't knock

01:15:29.980 that plan because that plan worked that plan worked yeah so he just yeah you know could that

01:15:35.660 work today a lot of people i don't know i don't know if in prison you have bar soap anymore but

01:15:41.460 if you drink liquid soap or hand sanitizer i mean you're gonna die the people listen to this podcast

01:15:48.800 from prisons um something to consider yeah so yeah work for him so he gets let out in uh 1881

01:15:59.220 i think wait okay i don't know where this story is going but so far i'm like 10 out of 10 for

01:16:03.860 guessing the next thing yes so was he in prison like sideshow bob in the simpsons just being like

01:16:09.460 i hate you marm and just like obsessing about wanting revenge on her yeah yeah of course he

01:16:15.220 was okay so literally the absolute second he gets out of prison he's like hey police um you know 0.99

01:16:22.600 that marmanda bomb bitch she's been stealing she's been fencing stolen goods for 30 years 0.91

01:16:27.700 and the cops then come in and arrest her for being his fence because she's too tall to escape 0.99

01:16:35.140 in the dumbwaiter yeah yes and i think she's also like also i know all of these cops and i know all 0.90

01:16:42.460 of the judges so fucking take me in whatever i don't care fair because everybody knew yeah of 0.83

01:16:49.840 course she's a fence literally this is not news to anybody but it's very hard to prove 0.98

01:16:54.140 that someone's offense because you're not catching them in the act of stealing anything

01:16:58.740 no one's going to testify against her i would think right and the way the law was back then

01:17:03.580 it it wasn't enough to catch someone fencing stolen goods you had to prove that they knew

01:17:09.280 that they were stolen because if you did it by accident that wasn't a crime and so what she does

01:17:14.820 is well first she gets her two circus ringmaster lawyers on the case and this six foot tall man 0.88

01:17:21.760 in his purple velvet suit delays the trial for two years on bullshit he's just like she can't

01:17:27.580 come to court today it's raining too much and like this worked until 1883 they just put the

01:17:33.560 bug off but eventually you still see you still see that strategy literally today in various high

01:17:40.460 profile trials just like delay delay delay yeah yep and eventually in 1883 it went to trial and

01:17:47.540 mar mandelbaum got up on the stand in her silk and her diamonds and said i had no idea that nice

01:17:54.020 young man was a thief this is news to me and um that didn't work because no really of course it 0.98

01:18:02.740 didn't um but she didn't go to jail she was fined like a couple thousand dollars and whatever she

01:18:09.440 was rich but to her that's like yeah it's like the equivalent of like a cup of coffee yeah yeah

01:18:14.800 yeah but the point of it is this is the first time she's ever been convicted on anything right

01:18:19.160 this is the first time the system hasn't bailed her out and so this is a sign that okay maybe

01:18:24.720 you can't run the city the way you used to maybe the law is catching up so why do you think

01:18:32.720 that is was the city getting a bit less wild west criminals run everything e or was this like uh oh 0.97

01:18:40.560 she's jewish and we don't like that anymore well i'm gonna tell you why because i don't think it's 0.66

01:18:45.500 that i don't think that helped her but i think what happened was in 1883 a brand new district

01:18:52.580 attorney comes to new york city his name is peter theodore roosevelt sorry no sorry

01:18:59.360 he's just a man named peter okay however this is the first da that new york has had in 75 years 0.97

01:19:10.860 who was interested in stopping crime instead of doing crime this guy sucks i know 0.72

01:19:17.860 so he's like there was if there's a movie of this pessimistically he would be the hero of the movie 0.97

01:19:24.640 you know i know you know like they would bring and he's like i'm gonna bring you law and order

01:19:28.400 it to here and it's just like you're ruining everything peter ruining the cool movie we were

01:19:32.120 watching peter it's no yeah okay so he comes in he's like actually doing law okay yeah he just

01:19:40.440 comes in he's like what is this clown car what is happening here i don't know if this was the same

01:19:45.700 time as like the comstock act which was i think it was similar time which is like we have to clean

01:19:51.840 up the vice in new york city which like to be fair there's a lot of vice in new york city right

01:19:58.820 now like literally everything is crime so like fair point to them this is probably a good idea

01:20:06.520 but i'm on marm's side because of course i am so so in terms of all this i'm just like right okay

01:20:12.460 i'm siding so hard with the criminal element but i feel like i feel like was marm she was stealing

01:20:19.380 from the already rich right mostly yeah so it's not like nice ass things she was stealing stuff

01:20:28.320 from kind of like cassie chadwick her victims were not like her victims were not people i am

01:20:36.100 particularly sympathetic towards right and also she's not out there whacking people i don't think

01:20:42.060 she ever kills anybody yeah like there's other people they're like gangs of new york the movie

01:20:47.000 um you know a lot of shitty stuff those gangs are doing but like i feel like she's i don't know i

01:20:52.780 support women's rights and wrongs rights and wrongs and in this instance i think like we're

01:21:00.500 seeing you know a woman who is just like there's a similar gang that we haven't talked about on

01:21:05.060 the podcast before but i know you know about them the 40 elephants in yes england at this same time

01:21:10.620 and they were also just kind of like here's what we're doing stealing jewels from the rich like

01:21:16.860 pickpocketing from the wealthy it's just like we're not killing anyone we're just getting nice

01:21:20.960 things so we can look glamorous i see nothing wrong with this no absolutely not and that's

01:21:26.320 my point of view on this podcast don't um do crimes everybody but oldie timey crimes

01:21:32.500 respect yeah yes absolutely peter be only da of new york city does not agree with you

01:21:40.560 okay peter needs to get his priorities it's like yeah go after the vice that's like

01:21:46.460 you know people being assaulted people like burn the the fire the volunteer fire brigade

01:21:52.660 bring down the houses go after them marm is just like an entrepreneurial mom who's just like a

01:22:00.480 lady she's just a lady with a dream who likes to throw a dinner party like i don't know i don't 0.65

01:22:06.480 I feel like Peter, he had bigger things to worry about.

01:22:09.380 I would think so.

01:22:09.760 But I guess that guy, the guy from the jail, the Sideshow Bob guy, I guess he really presented

01:22:14.560 this on a platter, like, hey, here's this criminal, and I'm willing to testify against

01:22:19.720 her. 1.00

01:22:19.920 Yeah. 0.91

01:22:20.260 Okay.

01:22:20.640 Okay. 0.99

01:22:20.960 So Peter sucks. 1.00

01:22:22.200 Peter sucks. 1.00

01:22:22.660 New York. 1.00

01:22:23.240 New York is, you know how people say like, oh, New York used to be great, and then they

01:22:27.420 like cleaned it up, and now it's this like tourist city.

01:22:30.320 I'm like, yeah, I see what you mean now.

01:22:32.620 Yeah.

01:22:34.100 Yeah.

01:22:34.460 so what only does he wants to catch marm in the act of fencing because like i said you have to

01:22:43.600 be proven that you knew you were that you're doing it is he sort of like a javert type character yes

01:22:52.100 but almost because i'm about to introduce you to the javert of this story which is

01:22:56.660 the pinkerton detective agency are you familiar with the pinkertons tell everybody okay i don't

01:23:03.680 know everything about the pinkertons but this is like the first private detective agency in the u.s

01:23:10.200 and they're sort of like who the cops would call in when you need to go undercover on like a sting

01:23:16.120 operation yeah they're sort of like mars operation but like nerds and like not cool they're like

01:23:23.400 sherlock holmes meets like you're a spy meets like a tax auditor i think they're sort of like

01:23:32.600 if this was a tv show um it would be sort of like csi olden days like it's just sort of like a crack

01:23:38.580 team of people trying to solve things but again in this instance i'm on the side of the criminals 0.94

01:23:42.800 so i think they're nerds i think they were also union busters fuck the pinkertons yeah and i think 0.65

01:23:50.260 they still are um they had something to do with i think at some point when this was on drunk history 0.91

01:23:56.760 um abraham lincoln i think they were like his personal bodyguards at one point or something

01:24:01.600 they're just like and like there's like a a book out that's about like the first like lady

01:24:06.320 Pinkerton it's like she was the first like woman prime investigator or something anyway so they

01:24:10.920 come in yes and they're just like we're nerds and we're here to stop crime because we don't

01:24:15.160 want New York to be cool anymore yeah exactly and so one of the Pinkerton spies like goes

01:24:22.520 undercover as one of Marm's thieves so he like gets into her inner circle um okay that's cool

01:24:29.180 it is kind of cool yeah he uses the pseudonym stein which like try harder is all i'm saying

01:24:36.360 look at me i'm jewish hello it's fine i'm i'm mr cohen how about that hanukkah exactly what

01:24:44.360 it feels like i brought my dreidel i'm mr stein yeah yeah so it takes him like six months which 0.88

01:24:53.660 is half soft to marm for four six months having a pinkerton working in her thieving factory and he 0.79

01:25:01.160 wasn't able to yeah good but finally he works with like a silk vendor so like they hide something 0.66

01:25:11.880 super secret in the silk like they stitch some initials in there so that they can identify this

01:25:17.880 particular one is being stolen i don't know all of the ins and outs of how you trace stolen silk

01:25:24.440 but all i know is that mom didn't sufficiently criminally launder this particular bolt of silk

01:25:31.320 and so it was enough for the cops to pin her as selling it on purpose this is i keep just thinking

01:25:39.140 of this in terms of like every movie i've ever heard of but there's that movie the departed

01:25:44.540 where it's like a guy who's undercover with a gang but then he like kind of starts to side with the

01:25:50.140 gang this would be also a good story as well like i think the movie that we need is the bugs bunny

01:25:55.920 oceans one um but i think that this could be a compelling story as well because i think to get

01:26:04.320 a movie made these days you need like a copaganda angle and i think you need like a white man as

01:26:11.300 your hero so i think this might be the way in yeah anyway okay so he he's not won over by her 0.85

01:26:17.060 gang no and instead is a nerd and rats are out yeah here's the thing though when the cops come

01:26:25.720 to the dry goods store to arrest marm mendelbaum in 1884 the pinkerton agent comes with to be like 0.99

01:26:32.300 haha i got you and marm bless her fucking heart punches the pinkerton spy in the face yes i thought 1.00

01:26:40.720 she's gonna say oh i thought he was a nice boy no better no she said fuck you and she punched 1.00

01:26:44.840 her in the face i hope she had a handful of rings on yeah i like of course she did she had diamonds 1.00

01:26:51.060 everywhere and she's six foot two yeah yeah good good and you know the way that she took people in 1.00

01:26:58.340 i don't know at this point like how legit like how much she did this anymore but like

01:27:02.420 you described it sort of like this family like in fast and furious um and these people she saw

01:27:07.920 them as like her children so it's like betrayal from like her child yeah it's exactly like

01:27:12.480 punching him in the face is the correct response in this instance i condone violence obviously

01:27:18.620 yes so she gets taken to jail to await her hearing to see if the case would go to trial 0.99

01:27:27.680 and yeah this is where the papers go fucking nuts like this is where they're like we have 0.95

01:27:33.120 a rich jewish lady who did a crime and all of the political cartoons from this era are like 0.97

01:27:38.960 the worst thing that you can imagine what they are yeah yeah yeah but uh but marm um bless her 0.60

01:27:45.780 pretends so hard they interview her they're like have you ever done a crime marm mandelbaum

01:27:50.840 crime boss and she says quote i have never never stolen anything in my life unquote yeah which

01:27:58.840 okay might be true might be true have i acquired stolen goods laundered them

01:28:05.320 did i hire people to rob things yes did i ever no so she's being yeah yeah no it's actually true

01:28:15.160 actually true um she goes to her hearing dressed to the nines her lawyer comes dressed to the nines

01:28:23.860 and motions for the charges to be dismissed so many times

01:28:28.620 that the judge says, quote,

01:28:30.640 you're making too many motions, sir.

01:28:36.920 I thought the judge was going to be like,

01:28:38.520 you know what, I give in. 0.99

01:28:40.000 No, he's like, please shut up, you weird man. 0.99

01:28:42.440 What's happening? 0.99

01:28:44.380 Yeah.

01:28:45.360 But Marm's defense, basically,

01:28:47.440 like she says it in a cool, plausible deniability way,

01:28:50.980 but she says, listen,

01:28:52.180 do you actually want me on the stand talking because oh if i she's friends with all the cops

01:28:59.040 you have no idea who i could bring down with me i could bring down the entire police office and

01:29:05.920 all of the politicians in new york if you want me to testify i can testify and that doesn't work 0.98

01:29:12.780 um which is their mistake so bail gets set for her at ten thousand dollars and her trial date

01:29:18.780 is set um i want to say that again bail was set at ten thousand dollars in oldie timey money

01:29:25.960 bail for a murderer at this time was five hundred dollars okay wow okay yeah again she can afford

01:29:34.520 this but like that's that's wild yeah yeah and she paid it she's like yeah sure have ten thousand

01:29:39.400 dollars i don't fucking care i'm going home and on the day of her trial the entire city comes to 0.61

01:29:47.500 the courthouse it's a press circus yeah and they're waiting for the trial to start and they're 0.96

01:29:54.900 waiting for the trial to start and they're waiting and then the foreman comes out and it's like i'm

01:30:02.480 so sorry your honor we can't find her no you can't you can't find her where was she great 0.90

01:30:11.560 fucking question let's go back to the night before okay okay okay because she went into a carriage 0.98

01:30:18.420 to visit with her lawyers circus criminal lawyers the night before the trial a totally normal thing 1.00

01:30:23.940 everyone would do that the pinkertons follow her because fuck the pinkertons yeah and they see her 1.00

01:30:30.440 walk into the lawyer's office and then three hours later they see her leave and get back in 1.00

01:30:37.280 the carriage and go home but that was or do they because they saw a six foot two somebody else

01:30:44.920 dressed like marm leave was it her six foot tall lawyer wearing the velvet suits maybe 0.68

01:30:51.480 we're not sure i think so so this is like again like she's got a winning strategy like with that

01:30:57.840 one bank where they got banjo banjo pete banjo mike where they got him to dress like the the

01:31:03.460 bank tolerance down in the window she's just like people don't pay it just wear the clothes

01:31:07.220 yeah okay okay so some her her lawyer goes out as the decoy into the street and marm sneaks out

01:31:14.720 the back with her son and they have their suitcases ready and they get on a train and

01:31:20.200 run away to canada to canada to uh toronto um they've got suitcases full of jewels and they

01:31:29.180 show up in the city of toronto and everybody in the city of toronto is like hey isn't that woman

01:31:36.500 with the suitcase with the jewels the world's most famous criminal fence yeah i do want to say

01:31:41.020 that toronto and new york city not that far apart yeah no they would have they would have gotten the

01:31:47.300 news yeah to her credit she immediately leaves toronto and goes to hamilton ontario hamilton

01:31:54.500 ontario shout out to hamilton ontario i know people there um and i bet you never thought

01:32:01.440 we'd say the name of your city on this show and here we are and here we are um so they are

01:32:08.440 immediately arrested upon arrival in hamilton ontario okay however um once again marm is too 1.00

01:32:16.660 smart for them because she can only get arrested if they know that she has a suitcase full of stolen 1.00

01:32:21.400 goods but she's taken all the marks off the jewels already so it looks like she's just traveling with

01:32:26.580 a suitcase full of diamonds and they can't pin anything on it they don't know that those are

01:32:31.280 stolen they can't prove it yeah and at this point in history there are no extradition laws between 0.99

01:32:38.560 canada and the u.s yeah so the cops in new york that that asshole uh da sends a message to the 0.97

01:32:47.040 city police of hamilton ontario and says hey i know it's not legally required but could you 0.96

01:32:54.000 please extradite mar mandelbaum to the court we're currently waiting for her her trial is assembled

01:33:00.620 and the police of hamilton ontario ghost him they never respond you know why because they're

01:33:09.240 because they get it they know that they're like this is great for us for tourism to have this

01:33:14.920 person in our city like what and i'm sure she she's like hey if i give you these diamonds would

01:33:19.400 you not extradite me and they're like cool and she's like i'm having a dinner party yeah okay 1.00

01:33:24.140 yeah so she's in fucking hamilton ontario yes and she can't go back to new york because the second 0.76

01:33:32.260 she sets foot in new york she's going to get arrested and so she's there with her son and 1.00

01:33:36.300 she's like you know what we can work with this we've been in worse places than this and she sets

01:33:42.280 up a brand new store on main street in hamilton ontario a dry goods store it's a ladies underwear

01:33:49.260 store but she uses it the same way she used the dry goods store so she's like hey if anyone happens

01:33:57.560 to have anything they want to get rid of in hamilton ontario um stop by my underwear store

01:34:02.580 and i could probably take care of that for you i don't know much it works like the thing with new

01:34:09.240 york city huge city port city like people are coming and going all the time hamilton i don't

01:34:14.660 know much about but clearly there's a she saw an opportunity and it was able to i don't know

01:34:23.140 i was just looking to see where cassie chadwick was from because she also spent time in ontario

01:34:28.460 i'm like could these two could we could another movie idea be a thelma and louise situation oh my

01:34:33.440 god this would be the mother daughter green team yeah yeah if the two of them i'm just anyway i

01:34:41.020 know that she was somewhere in canada i was wondering if they might have seen to that okay

01:34:45.040 so hamilton ontario underwear store it's all just starting again it's just like 2.0 yeah she's like

01:34:52.680 all good she's in her 60s at this point and there's less crime in hamilton ontario because

01:34:59.400 there's less people and also less diamonds so this is not as successful but like no and i'm

01:35:05.620 thinking like the banks wouldn't have as much money there's yeah like she's downgrading her 1.00

01:35:09.580 lifestyle considerably yeah and she's pissed like to her dying day she's like i fucking wish i was 0.97

01:35:16.880 in new york city right now those were the best days of my life and i hate it here sorry to give 0.89

01:35:21.280 no this is fine i was double checking something else as well so we mentioned this in the cassie

01:35:26.360 Chadwick episode but there is an incredibly long-running Canadian show called Murdoch

01:35:30.940 Mysteries which is about a man in oldie times Toronto who solves murders um Pinkertons have

01:35:39.080 been involved I'm sure Margaret Atwood has had a cameo role on it former Canadian Prime Minister

01:35:44.680 Stephen Harper has been on it it's an institution in this country and I've never actually watched it

01:35:49.320 anyway they had a Cassie Chadwick episode I guess and I was like well they have to like

01:35:55.700 these writers it's like the Grey's Anatomy's writers or Law and Order it's just like

01:35:59.760 they must be frantic for new plot lines after this many seasons of like a 22 episode season

01:36:05.640 I'm like they must have done Mara Mandelbaum like she was in Hamilton she's in Toronto they could

01:36:09.720 have and they haven't yet if any of the writers of Murdoch Mysteries are listening to this

01:36:14.480 it's right here it's so good it's on a platter for you right here you could do a several season

01:36:21.240 like episode arc mara mandelbaum could come in she could help solve some cases she could be sort

01:36:26.540 of like an irene adler figure you know like with murdoch you know who's on that now is um the dad

01:36:33.680 from kim's convenience he's on there now it's like a like a chinese detective um in olden days

01:36:40.400 toronto anyway shout out to murdoch mysteries i'm i'm honestly astonished that but maybe

01:36:46.300 like this book just came out 2024 so they're probably currently filming a mara mandelbaum

01:36:52.340 because they just found out about her or maybe they're finding out about her right now from

01:36:55.520 this podcast again shout out to mark mysteries i would love to make a cameo appearance on your show

01:36:59.920 okay so she's in hamilton she's just like i'm not in jail but is this any better hamilton ontario

01:37:07.940 So, yeah.

01:37:09.560 Fine. 0.99

01:37:10.340 And she has room for one last caper. 1.00

01:37:15.300 Please.

01:37:15.560 Okay.

01:37:15.820 It's a sad one, but it's also badass.

01:37:18.300 So I love it.

01:37:19.960 It's the early 1890s.

01:37:22.620 My marm had four kids.

01:37:24.460 And one of them married a New York politician and died in childbirth in the early 1890s in New York. 0.98

01:37:33.040 Boo.

01:37:33.260 So marm is in Hamilton.

01:37:35.080 Boo to dying in childbirth.

01:37:37.320 Yeah.

01:37:37.540 it rips away so many cool people the best mom and she's like i haven't been able to see my kid 0.90

01:37:43.220 in years because i can't leave canada because as soon as she gets to new york she's gonna be

01:37:49.620 like put on trial yeah yeah yeah but the funeral's in new york city and she's like well i'll be 0.99

01:37:54.380 goddamned if i'm gonna miss my daughter's funeral and so good yeah good mom okay she sneaks back 1.00

01:38:01.760 into new york city in disguise i was gonna say disguise she hides in the secret passages of her 1.00

01:38:08.480 old dry goods store and she only comes up for like the body viewing in the shiva in the house

01:38:17.220 she doesn't go to the graveyard because that's where the cops are but she's like my time with 0.97

01:38:21.220 my daughter we had our own little private morning and then she gets back on the train and sneaks

01:38:27.440 away to canada and do you know what her disguise was was it a mustache i have to believe it was a

01:38:34.440 fake beard and a hat but i do not know because i think with her height the best course of action

01:38:40.220 is to disguise yourself as a man agreed i think she could have done that yeah i think like a six 1.00

01:38:45.120 foot tall woman would be noticed it's a probably for the daughter of a six foot tall woman who's

01:38:53.800 currently an on-the-run criminal you know those passageways come in so handy really i love it

01:38:59.840 and so she got in no i love i love that i love that for her yeah and so she goes back to canada

01:39:05.700 um she's in her late 60s um the the newspapers all over america falsely report her death in like

01:39:13.720 1893 and she has to write a retraction to the newspaper it'd be like jk i'm actually not dead

01:39:18.800 i'm still here i'm just in canada iconic love it yeah but she does pass away in 1894 of kidney

01:39:26.840 disease natural causes age 68 which for oldie days pretty good for oldie days for someone living the

01:39:34.580 life she was living where like my ancestor was just shot you know like she's anyway your ancestor

01:39:41.680 george leslie the consulting burglar yeah you know like people are just like in this criminal world

01:39:47.620 of new york cité oldie times like living the life she was living was a dangerous life of criminal

01:39:54.580 like another gang boss could have killed her or whatever but she didn't so 68 kidney disease

01:39:59.480 still too young but honestly she lived a life yeah and i have one last anecdote for the road

01:40:05.060 about her funeral because oh i'm curious where she was buried um she was buried i believe in new york

01:40:11.880 in new york okay so dead but she didn't go back to new york until she's dead okay right but i don't

01:40:17.280 like she would want to be buried in hamilton ontario i think i think that's why i'm thinking 0.97

01:40:20.800 fuck this no i want to be back in my cool city with my daughter i love to hamilton ontario i 0.98

01:40:26.040 know people who live there but like come on she doesn't you know marm didn't want to be there 1.00

01:40:30.820 yeah but because she was such a badass people were like she can't have died of kidney disease 0.68

01:40:36.720 at age 68 that's not what would happen to marm i bet you she faked her death and she's on the run 1.00

01:40:41.720 and now she's living in new york city so there were rumors that she filled her coffin with rocks

01:40:47.220 and then went off and lived for another 40 years and some people think that she showed up at her

01:40:55.360 own funeral where they buried the coffin full of rocks and uh picked the pockets of the people at

01:41:01.100 her funeral which i know isn't true but like to believe is true it's spiritually true it's

01:41:07.520 spiritually true and if she wasn't there in person then i think she was there as in ghost form yes

01:41:15.040 picking pockets as a ghost yeah it's like i take this with me to the actor yeah yeah the coffin

01:41:22.040 not full of rocks full of diamonds full of 50 000 cigars full of goats yeah and that is the saga

01:41:32.480 is that that's that is the saga of frederica marr mendelbaum this is it has so many things i know

01:41:41.460 you love yes and that really makes me happy like disguises bank robberies heists just like

01:41:48.440 the the lawyers the lawyers are very alice and epstein coded i have to say i would have written

01:41:58.640 them if they weren't real yeah and the fact that he actually was the lawyer for actual pt barnum

01:42:03.380 like of course he was perfect um so we're gonna score her i've been thinking about this ahead of

01:42:10.920 time trying to do the score in my head to see if she's going to get a 23 and end in

01:42:15.720 alice and epstein corner i think i think oh here's the thing it's hard to say it's uh there's

01:42:22.160 some things she's going to score highly in and there's one thing she's going to score lowly in

01:42:25.460 so we'll see how the numbers turn out the first one i'm going to go out of order because i think

01:42:31.620 some of these are given scheminess if this girl doesn't get a 10 what are we doing here what even

01:42:40.460 like honestly like she was everything everything about her story like just going from being like

01:42:46.860 a peddler not germany to the like the way that she kept leveling up her business yeah when she 0.61

01:42:53.460 didn't need to she could have happily just retired effectively on the money she was making but she 0.99

01:42:59.400 was just like couldn't stop scheming her whole job was schemes she wasn't even executing the 1.00

01:43:04.740 schemes they just called her to come up with schemes she was sort of a consulting schemer 0.96

01:43:08.960 and just like the the layout of her apartment yeah 10 out of 10 for the dumb waiter the sneaking

01:43:15.260 out of the lawyer's house to get on a train a plus scheme oh my gosh and it's they were great

01:43:21.880 schemes and they were like in this time like if she was today her schemes would be more sophisticated

01:43:26.960 but back then no one was expecting these schemes you could just bugs bunny cut a hole in a bank

01:43:32.240 like you could why would you be more complicated when a bugs bunny through the bank works yeah or

01:43:37.840 just like sending out your lawyer dressed in your dress like that's all you need to do like basic

01:43:43.120 schemes but effective and she knew she didn't have to complicate things 10 out of 10 for schemes

01:43:46.960 my god um scandalousness i'm curious what your thoughts are about this because i love it but

01:43:53.040 in the context of pre pete new york cité she was just kind of everyone's kind of like she didn't 1.00

01:44:00.420 stand out or did she did stand out she was okay famous for being so good at what she did

01:44:07.380 i think she was a public figure to the extent that they were writing plays about her and then 0.98

01:44:13.360 she would attend them and watch them i will say i'm not gonna give her a 10 for scandalous 1.00

01:44:19.400 deliciousness because she was like the good mom neighborhood watch captain who went to temple 1.00

01:44:27.180 every friday and like and like she was married like there's not like sex scandals there's not

01:44:31.480 there is no sex scandal there is no my ancestor mr leslie would score highly in scandalousness

01:44:37.480 but she i think in the time and the place like she was at a certain like this is at least a five

01:44:43.740 just everyone living in new york cité at that time is that a five of scandalousness because

01:44:47.280 that the city was that but you're like she was like a good jewish mom like so i don't know where

01:44:53.600 would you put her i'm thinking a six or seven okay i'm gonna go seven because we're gonna round

01:45:01.880 because i'm sure she always rounded up when she was adding yes she did um except for payment for

01:45:09.380 her workers so um significance this is the one i wasn't sure about yeah in the book um the talented

01:45:19.660 the marvelous mrs mendelbaum which is not the name of the book does the author explain how

01:45:25.200 she heard about her because she was so famous in her time but there hasn't been a book about her

01:45:31.060 she's not been on murdoch mysteries like how how famous is she now i don't know yeah not that

01:45:38.280 terribly famous now but there are like like the trial her hearing and her not showing up at the

01:45:44.200 trial was in every single newspaper ever so like the new york city archives has like you can follow

01:45:51.120 every second of that so at the time that was that was like the oj simpson trial of 1883 or whatever

01:46:00.800 it was so at the time very significant and if you think about her impact on new york and on all the

01:46:08.960 people who she trained um how many crimes are committed because of her like so many things

01:46:14.340 would like zoom back into her influence like how many thieves got their start at her academy

01:46:22.140 her influence on later generations um but also i think that she was in all sincerity

01:46:29.840 like providing work for all of these new immigrants like she was helping people

01:46:34.060 get their feet in this new city and then how like those people and what did their descendants do

01:46:39.600 like how did they settle it like she was sort of elevating the whole neighborhood and the whole

01:46:43.920 community in a way i think um but at the same time her significance it i mean she's not like

01:46:51.840 a teddy rose she's not like an al capone you know it's not like she was significant in the time

01:46:58.020 like i think the ripple effects of her life continue on spiritually in all of today's

01:47:02.520 grifters i don't know for significance i might say something like a seven as well oh i was gonna

01:47:07.400 say a five so let's say six six i think and then this is where i think she's gonna not score amazing 0.97

01:47:14.580 which is a sexism bonus i don't know if that held her back at all i think she said fuck that i don't 0.81

01:47:20.040 care it doesn't seem like anyone was ever like a woman crime boss no like it seems like everyone's 0.98

01:47:26.900 like oh she's like these terrifying like pta moms they're just like oh man yeah no we can

01:47:31.880 you can run the bake sale yeah like she's yeah i don't to a certain extent it might have helped 1.00

01:47:38.120 her like it gave her notoriety in the criminal sphere but it also was like do you really want

01:47:44.240 to bust the neighborhood mom for crime or would you rather go after banjo pete like that seems 1.00

01:47:50.440 like a more obvious criminal yeah to crime and then also when she like the first time she was 1.00

01:47:55.840 arrested she was like me what crime like a little old lady me like she could lean into it like i

01:48:02.900 don't think sexism i don't honestly allison i'm like even anti-semitism i'm like did anything

01:48:08.160 stop her nothing really did only one thing that only yeah the one thing that this book did note

01:48:16.700 is that the the kind of jobs she would have been able to get in america as a woman and as a jewish 0.68

01:48:24.080 woman there were not a lot of options for her other than peddling in crime when she got here 1.00

01:48:29.140 like she was not going to be able to say i'd like to become a medical doctor and then go and make 0.54

01:48:33.480 millions like a normal way so there it's not nothing but no i agree with you that basically

01:48:39.720 nothing stopped her she yeah it's like oh no she couldn't become a medical doctor it's like we're

01:48:46.180 better for it she shouldn't good this is what but yeah no you're right it's not nothing but

01:48:54.040 so she kind of I think just in a very canny way she's just like okay this is the world this is 1.00

01:48:59.280 how the cards that are stacked up against me is like a Jewish woman immigrant um and here's where

01:49:03.920 I can thrive and let's just do it so I don't know like sexism I don't know like a two or something

01:49:09.800 I was gonna say a two yeah yeah a circumstantial two for being the 19th century this gets her just

01:49:16.460 slightly out of the Alison Epstein corridor which for people who don't know when Alison is on this

01:49:21.340 podcast generally everyone who she talks about ends up without us planning it with a 23 every

01:49:27.260 time every time but not this time no this time it's a 25 a 25 that might be my highest score

01:49:35.120 it's yeah let me see so 25 oh well this is well this was an allison episode rochelle has a 26

01:49:43.000 there we go okay but she spiritually should be right next to rochelle yeah absolutely so i'm

01:49:49.120 just putting her in here officially in my document. So at 25, let's see. Yeah. Catalina

01:49:54.320 de Arosa, 23.5. Lola Montes, 23. Like these are the, these are the Alison episodes. Empress 1.00

01:50:00.400 Elizabeth, 23. Christopher Marlowe, 22.5. This is the Alison cul-de-sac. Yeah. Where they're not

01:50:07.260 significant at all, but they're tremendous fun to talk about. Yeah. And often it's like,

01:50:12.600 there's a lot of scandal there's there's always a scheme there's scandal and there's scheming but

01:50:19.540 often not much else but always a fantastic story so just a sec yeah so i have all the numbers

01:50:24.540 written in amazing i mean amazing say the name of the book again that is not your book you're

01:50:29.420 promoting but this other person's book please uh it's called the talented mrs mendelbaum by

01:50:34.000 margalite fox it came out last year uh highly recommend yeah absolutely because i mean this was

01:50:40.940 like cool hour 45 minutes of the upper level highlights of this story but reading the book

01:50:47.160 like for me personally i'm like i need to see this floor plan it's worth it for the drawing

01:50:52.120 of the dumb waiter you lose your mind oh i will i shall um but then also what is your book that

01:50:58.980 you are promoting yes the book i did write is fagin the thief by me uh historical fiction 0.99

01:51:05.420 retelling of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. If you like a story about a historical Jewish

01:51:11.100 dirtbag thief who's a terrible person, but also delightful, this book is for you. 1.00

01:51:16.000 I mean, it's the two stories, like they coincide so beautifully, I think, just kind of like this 0.90

01:51:22.380 real life person, the character that you're reclaiming from Charles Dickens' shitty portrayal

01:51:28.340 of this guy. I'm so glad you did. So this asshole Charles Dickens, so that this episode didn't have

01:51:34.280 to be me yelling at charles dickens because that's not fun for me yeah no so if the listeners if you 0.88

01:51:41.280 haven't heard that it's on the main feed i think i released it when you're at christmas to everybody 0.96

01:51:44.840 it was originally a patreon episode but then i put it on the main feed so yeah so this asshole 0.86

01:51:48.920 charles dickens just scroll back through your vulgar history on your podcast feed what else 0.86

01:51:53.560 allison what i mean you you have you're going on tour you're going on boat tour your book is being

01:51:57.700 published so tell where can people yeah where can they find you uh my book is being published on

01:52:04.220 february the 25th and to find out everything about that including where i'm gonna go where

01:52:09.020 i'm gonna be how to pre-order a book if you want uh it's all at my website alisonepstein.com

01:52:14.820 um the only social i'm really on these days is instagram at rapscallison rapscallion with an s

01:52:22.520 and i'm also on substack i was gonna say like there will be a marm mandelbaum newsletter once

01:52:30.600 i have time to write newsletters again but yeah yeah i write a subset called dirtbags through the

01:52:35.900 ages which is people who suck in fun ways sent to your inbox every other week um through substat

01:52:44.520 and i'm taking a brief hiatus well um book launch stuff has completely taken over my life but i will

01:52:51.200 be back in hopefully march with more of that and so listeners you can see me me and allison in

01:52:59.280 person um in minneapolis a city have you ever been to minneapolis i have yes lovely okay they

01:53:07.800 have a flower museum which is close the day we're gonna be there we've already checked which is

01:53:12.540 tragic i know i love a specific museum anyway um so we're gonna be in minneapolis at what's it

01:53:20.180 called majors and quinn majors and quinn yes majors and quinn the bookstore on tuesday march

01:53:25.240 4th. I think it's 7pm. I might just be making that up. Anyway, you can I'll put the link to

01:53:31.800 that in the show notes for this episode because they prefer if you RSVP, I think you can still

01:53:35.840 show up. But they want to know how many people are coming basically. And I do know that also

01:53:40.280 that if you're like, Oh, no, I'm not in Minneapolis. It's like it's going to be on YouTube

01:53:43.680 later. So people can hear you and I permission to record. So yeah, more to come for all later.

01:53:51.520 exactly so if you want to hear us talk about actually allison's book that is what we're

01:53:55.740 going to be doing there in person and then also if you're in the minneapolis area and you want

01:53:59.900 to come we're going to have a vulgar history meetup on the next day so on wednesday march

01:54:05.440 5th so go to vulgarhistory.com meetup to rsvp for that to get information about where we're

01:54:10.420 meeting and what we're going to be doing because i need to know how many people are coming

01:54:13.100 i feel like this might be a big one um i i know there's at least three people

01:54:18.200 in Minneapolis who listen to this podcast. One of them is Lana Wood Johnson and other people

01:54:23.440 are there as well. Anyway, Alison, thank you so much. This is a delight. And I'm really excited

01:54:28.900 for your book to be unleashed into the world. Does it feel weird to have this book unleashed

01:54:33.500 into the world? It does. I feel weirdly overwhelmed by this one. You'd think it'd

01:54:39.700 get easier. This is my third book. And every single time I'm like, oh God, what's going to

01:54:43.820 happen? Is it going to be okay? But I love this book and I'm excited to see it out in the world.

01:54:50.860 My author copies got here last night at 9.30 p.m. So I now have them.

01:54:56.240 Oh, the actual books?

01:54:57.240 The actual books, yes.

01:54:58.820 Can you describe on this audio medium? Because the book is really beautiful.

01:55:04.220 It is really beautiful.

01:55:05.700 Gold.

01:55:07.100 They gave me a textured cover, which makes me so happy. It's this dark, moody,

01:55:12.040 turquoise blue but it's got raised letters that are kind of shiny and there's a pocket watch on

01:55:17.320 the front that's in gold foil which I love because I love a shiny thing so it's beautiful

01:55:22.820 as an object it is delightful and so again people can get that it's available

01:55:26.920 well when people hear this episode one week from now um from in North America and then hopefully

01:55:34.040 someone is listening to this who is a imprint in the UK or somewhere else and they're like us too

01:55:40.680 And then it can get to all these other places as well.

01:55:42.920 Call my agent.

01:55:43.700 We will talk about that.

01:55:45.120 We'll figure it all out.

01:55:46.740 Thank you, Alison.

01:55:47.860 As per ever, I'm sure you'll be back on talking about something.

01:55:51.640 Who knows?

01:55:52.520 Who knows?

01:55:53.180 I look forward to it.

01:55:54.280 Thanks, Anne.

01:55:54.940 Always a pleasure.

01:56:01.900 It's always such a pleasure to record with Alison Epstein.

01:56:05.440 and i'm really really really excited to um get to meet allison in person in a couple weeks

01:56:12.760 in minneapolis where again if you want to uh take part in the minneapolis vulgar history

01:56:19.760 tits of brigade meetup go to vulgarhistory.com slash meetup m-e-e-t-u-p and fill out the google

01:56:26.560 form there just so i know how many people to expect and so i can figure out what time of day

01:56:30.720 works best for everybody. I'm really excited to meet you all. And then of course, if you are there

01:56:37.520 in the area, it'd be really great to see you also. And or, you know, you can do the meetup and also

01:56:43.200 come to the book event at Majors and Quinn, where Alison and I are going to be talking about Fagin

01:56:47.800 the Thief on Tuesday, March 4th. And the link to go to that, you can go to alisonepstein.com

01:56:54.160 for a list of all of Alison's appearances, but also go to just look at the show notes,

01:56:58.120 scroll down wherever you're listening to this podcast and there'll be a little thing where you

01:57:01.480 can RSVP for the book talk as well. And it will be posted later on YouTube and probably on my

01:57:06.480 Patreon or something. So you can hear us talking in person. It's going to be a fun time. And

01:57:12.480 y'all. So in terms of everything, ways that you can keep up with the show and me and what's going

01:57:20.100 on. As we mentioned in this episode, I wrote a book to Rebel of the Regency, the scandal saga

01:57:27.420 of Caroline Brunswick, Britain's Uncrowned Queen, working title. My book is finished. I'm now in

01:57:32.680 the midst of like editing it and getting it ready. And if you want to follow along with the journée,

01:57:37.940 look, I don't know what it's like. I'm just excited about everything to do with this book.

01:57:41.200 And I want to let you know all this stuff. You know, once there's like a cover, once you can

01:57:44.280 pre-order it and stuff, I'm throwing those details everywhere I can. But the best places to keep up

01:57:48.980 with me in this podcast and book news is by joining my mailing list. And this is a once

01:57:54.220 monthly email that i'm going to send out with the latest news about uh live events live vulgar

01:57:58.860 history events but also stuff about my book and what's going on um information about the podcast

01:58:03.720 and also i throw in some book and movie reviews there as well it's all free it's one email a month

01:58:08.840 i'm not going to spam you and if you want to get sign up for that mailing list go to vulgarhistory.com

01:58:14.800 slash news and then there's like a little form you fill in um just let me know you want to be

01:58:19.840 on the newsletter. And I think there's one, there's going to be a newsletter coming out in

01:58:25.080 the next couple of days. So it's a good time to sign up for it right now. And you can also keep

01:58:29.760 up with me. I'm on Substack at vulgarhistory.substack.com. So every other week I post

01:58:35.460 essays about women from history and you can sign up there. That's free as well. I do want to

01:58:40.940 emphasize that I like this podcast you're listening to right now is always free. The mailing list,

01:58:46.700 free, Substack free. I've got paid tiers in various places, but it's really important to me

01:58:51.320 to have my information and like most of the stuff I do available to everybody, no matter who you are

01:58:57.620 and what your situation is financially or whatever. You can support the podcast on Patreon for free

01:59:03.280 if you go to patreon.com slash Anne Foster Writer. And that's where I post just sort of like

01:59:07.920 interesting news updates. Like for instance, this month, February, 2025, it was announced that

01:59:14.840 Canada Post, the like postal system in Canada. Every year lately, they've been releasing a

01:59:20.840 special commemorative stamp for Black History Month. And this year, I was so excited to see

01:59:25.780 that the stamp that they released is Marie-Joseph Angelique, who listeners of this podcast might

01:59:30.760 remember from season seven, episode one. This was like last spring, we did an episode about her and

01:59:37.740 how she was an icon and how she probably burned down Montreal in an act of resistance against her

01:59:44.680 enslavement and now she's a stamp and which I really appreciate and I think it's a really cool

01:59:51.040 thing for to be commemorating and sharing her story and making her more wider known

01:59:55.040 in the context of just like reckoning with our past as a colonial nation etc anyway so I shared

02:00:02.480 the news about that on the patreon for instance and other links about other things like a letter

02:00:06.220 of Mary Queen of Scots that was up for auction and also I'm just basically saying if you want

02:00:11.720 to keep up if you want more than just a once monthly update which is what the mailing list

02:00:14.880 does you can just kind of see what i'm doing and also updates about the book and stuff are on

02:00:20.420 patreon go to patreon.com slash ann foster writer you can join as a free member and then if you want

02:00:25.200 to if you're able to and you want to financially support you can also pledge one dollar a month to

02:00:30.540 get early ad free access to all episodes of vulgar history if you pledge five dollars or more a month 0.96

02:00:35.520 you get also access to bonus episodes which is things like so this asshole we mentioned in this 0.92

02:00:40.140 episode i did an episode so this asshole charles dickens which started on the patreon and then 0.90

02:00:44.760 eventually i shared it to everybody but there's lots more episodes about shitty men from history

02:00:48.500 there you can listen to this whole archive of episodes of vulgar peace theater where allison

02:00:53.360 and i and our friend lana wood johnson talk about costume dramas we're all super busy at the moment

02:00:58.200 there will be new episodes of that soon but if you join right now there's the whole back catalog

02:01:02.220 and each episode is like three and a half hours long so that can keep you entertained

02:01:05.700 um and also if you join the patreon at five dollars or more a month you get to join our

02:01:10.640 discord which is just like a big group chat where we're all just kind of hanging out sharing

02:01:14.720 pictures of our pets talking about the vulgar history episodes and just having a nice time

02:01:18.960 in general we also are proud to be affiliated with the jewelry brand common era jewelry which

02:01:25.000 is a small woman-owned business out of new york city so a bit marm mendelbaum vibes there i guess

02:01:31.800 just jewelry new york city no grifting going on this is a legitimate a legitimate operation and

02:01:37.720 so the designs on common era jewelry are inspired by history especially classical history and

02:01:42.140 especially women from history and from mythology some of the women from mythology who are there

02:01:46.760 are like um aphrodite athena circe clydomnestra persephone and there's also historical figures

02:01:53.080 like bodica hatchepsut um cleopatra ogle of kiev sappho lots of people who have come up

02:02:00.360 in this podcast and the jewelry it's sort of like tori the owner she designs these beautiful

02:02:05.460 just sort of like images of like their face that's on the jewelry and then there's also

02:02:10.080 jewelry inspired their esoterica collection is inspired by like jewelry that's been found in

02:02:15.440 archaeological digs looking at sites from ancient egypt greece and rome so just some some beautiful

02:02:22.060 objects there as well so if you want to get some beautiful jewelry and just like feel like marm

02:02:27.120 with your gorgeous jewelry on.

02:02:28.820 These pieces are available in solid gold

02:02:30.620 as well as in more affordable gold vermeil.

02:02:32.620 Some of the pieces also have jewels in them.

02:02:35.280 Vulgar History listeners can always get 15% off

02:02:37.820 all items from Common Era

02:02:39.100 by going to commonera.com slash vulgar

02:02:41.320 or use code vulgar at checkout.

02:02:43.780 You can also support this podcast

02:02:45.780 and just spread the word about it

02:02:48.640 by wearing Vulgar History merchandise

02:02:50.520 or using Vulgar History merchandise.

02:02:53.120 Like we have t-shirts,

02:02:54.120 but you could also have practical things

02:02:55.620 like a mug, a travel mug, a phone case, a tote bag with just various phrases from the podcast.

02:03:04.440 And you can get that merchandise. Go to vulgarhistory.com slash store if you're in the

02:03:08.820 U.S. If you're outside the U.S., I recommend going to vulgarhistory.redbubble.com. If you

02:03:14.160 want to get in touch with me, like Irma did about her daughter Carmen's birthday and graduation,

02:03:19.220 go to vulgarhistory.com. There's a form there where you can contact me to send me along a message.

02:03:23.700 and you can also follow me on social media i mean i try to be in all the places like wherever

02:03:30.200 people are i want to be there talking about the podcast and available for you to reach out to me

02:03:34.580 so i'm on blue sky i'm on instagram i'm on threads at vulgar history pod next week we're going to be

02:03:41.180 looking at it's a classic re-release episode of an episode of vulgar history from i think it was

02:03:48.620 season two, um, women leaders from history and the men who whined about it. And it's a really

02:03:53.800 interesting, complex story, um, that I was glad to be revisiting and that's coming up

02:04:00.940 next week. But in the meantime, people in Minneapolis, I'll see you in two weeks.

02:04:06.360 Otherwise people just listen to this. I'll talk to you next week. Um, and until then

02:04:10.740 keep your pants on and your tits out. Fuck the Pinkertons. 1.00

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Vulgar History - February 19, 2025

The Jewish Lady Gangster Who Ran New York City

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