The 1920s and 1930s were the heydays of organized crime in New York City.

There were several mobsters from that period such as Dutch Schultz and Lucky Luciano who terrorized the city

and made a fortune.

Amongst all the organized crime figures in New York there was one who was

different from all the rest. She was a woman. Learn more about Stephanie St. Clair, the Queen

of the Harlem Numbers Racquet on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. The origins of Stephanie St. Clair are shrouded in way. There are many stories about her.

Some are true and some are probably fabricated.

The reason why there's so much doubt about her beginnings is probably that she wanted it that way.

If her opponents didn't know much about her

that gave her an advantage and if legendary stories about her were told in her

community that didn't hurt her either. What we do know is that she was probably

born in either 1897 or 1887 on the French

island of Guadalupe in the Caribbean. The fact that the given dates for her

birth are a decade apart is an indication of just how much her origins are a

mystery.

She attended school and was very clearly intelligent.

However, she had to drop out when at the age of 15 her mother became ill and died.

She migrated to Montreal to work probably around the year 1911 and then migrated to New York in

1912.

On her trip to New York and the subsequent quarantine period she had to go through, she taught

herself how to speak English. Once out of quarantine, almost penniless, she moved to the black community on the island of Manhattan, Harlem.

There are several stories about the rough times she had with several men she dated who were involved in the

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