It's going to hear with another episode of the History Unplugged Podcast.

In 1850, an impoverished 25-year-old named Frederica Mandelbaum came to New York and steerage and worked as a peddler on the streets of lower Manhattan.

By the 1870s she was a fixture of high society and an admired philanthropist.

How is she able to ascend from tenement poverty to vast wealth?

In the intervening years, Marm, as Manlbaum was known, had become the country's most notorious

offense, a receiver of stolen goods, and a criminal mastermind. By the mid-1880s, as much as $10 million

worth of purloined luxury goods, which is about $300 million today, had passed her

her lower east Side Shop.

She was called the nucleus and center of the whole organization of crime,

and she planned robberies of cash, gold, and diamonds throughout the country. Now, this was before the term organized crime even existed in law

enforcement vernacular and before political machines existed that connected

crooked politicians to mafia and everyone who took a cut in between.

But Meanderwab wasn't just a successful crook.

In one sense, she was a business visionary, one of the first entrepreneurs in America to

systematize the Scattershot Enterprise of Property Crime.

She hand-picked a group of the finest bank robbers, housebreakers, and shoplifters,

and handle logistics and organized supply chains, turning theft into a viable scalable business.

To discuss the story today's guest, Margalee Fox, author of the talented Mrs Mandelwop.

She means a picture of Guildilded Age in New York that

straddled live between Underworld Enterprise and Legitimate Commerce.

Hope you enjoyed this discussion.

And one more thing before we get started with this episode, a quick break for word from our sponsors.

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