The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum

May 15, 2024
Fox (The Confidence Men, 2021) thrusts readers into the mesmerizing world of Fredericka Mandelbaum, a formidable figure in New York's criminal underbelly during the Gilded Age. Her narrative doesn't merely recount Mandelbaum's exploits; it dismantles our romanticized notions of the era, revealing a complex tapestry of power dynamics and societal prejudices. Mandelbaum's rise from immigrant peddler to notorious crime boss is a tale of cunning and resilience. Fox meticulously illustrates how her subject navigated the corrupt landscape of nineteenth-century New York, exploiting loopholes and leveraging her outsider status to build an empire. Through immersive storytelling, Fox delves into the intricate web of alliances and betrayals that shaped Mandelbaum's world. The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum is more than just a true-crime biography; it's a riveting exploration of resilience and ambition in the face of adversity. Fox's narrative prowess and meticulous research make this a must-read for history enthusiasts and fans of gripping storytelling alike. After turning the final page, readers will find themselves haunted by Mandelbaum's indomitable spirit and pondering the complexities of her legacy.

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May 15, 2024
A biography of "the nucleus and center of the whole organization of crime" in late-19th-century New York City. Fredericka "Mother" Mandelbaum (1825-1894) and her family worked as "itinerate peddlers" in central Germany before emigrating to the U.S. in 1850, settling into a community of fellow German Jews on the Lower East Side of New York. Mandelbaum found her calling as a "criminal receiver," a fence for stolen goods, systemizing property crime in what developed into a lucrative business. At the time, professional crime was proliferating due to the advent of easily transferable "greenbacks," paper money, in the 1860s. Mandelbaum was seen as an upstanding member of the community, a generous donor to her synagogue, who hosted many a corrupt police officer and Tammany Hall official at her glamorous dinner parties. She was soon seeding the money needed for sophisticated bank heists. Fox, the author of The Confidence Men, describes the Mandelbaum-sponsored 1869 robbery of Ocean National Bank at length. Entrapped and arrested for trading in stolen silk, Mandelbaum jumped bail and escaped to Canada. Because there was no extradition treaty between Canada and the U.S., she evaded prison, though she considered expatriation "a kind of living death." Throughout this extraordinary life story, Fox explores larger issues of how organized crime grew during the Gilded Age of municipal corruption and stark inequality. The author shows how Mandelbaum "was marginalized three times over: immi-grant, woman and Jew," but nevertheless became New York's first female crime boss by having the right skill set as criminal professionalism blossomed. Renowned for both her "motherliness" and business acumen, Mandelbaum headed what became the "de facto Ladies' Auxiliary of Tammany Hall." A former accomplished writer of in-depth obituaries for the New York Times, Fox succeeds in rescuing a once-notorious public figure from historical obscurity. An engrossing portrait of an unlikely criminal mastermind.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from May 20, 2024
Journalist Fox (The Confidence Men) pieces together a captivating biography of Fredericka Mandelbaum (1825–1894), who oversaw one of America’s first large-scale criminal enterprises. Characterizing Mandelbaum as a crook with a conscience whose “reputation honesty in criminal matters was absolute,” Fox showcases how her skyrocketing success over several decades—which eventually propelled her into the highest echelons of New York society—was due to her careful masterminding of complex heists, talent for bribery, cultivation of loyalty among her associates, and innovation in the business of property crime, which Fox says Mandelbaum elevated from a scattershot local operation to a national network. Beginning with a stable of mostly female shoplifters, Mandelbaum, who worked behind the scenes as a fence for the stolen goods, expanded her operation to include home burglaries and bank robberies. Her greatest caper was the 1869 burglary of New York City’s Ocean National Bank (“a canonical example of the bank burglar’s art”), which netted $800,000 and required monthslong planning: a shell company rented an office below the bank, where a team of thieves invented new tools to cut through the cement ceiling. In the 1870s, Pinkerton private detectives began investigating property crimes on behalf of wealthy clients who distrusted corrupt police; Mandelbaum was arrested in 1884, but escaped to Canada before her trial. Fox’s detailed descriptions of intricate heists make for a transfixing tale. Readers will be swept up.