Welcome to the American Story.

Stories about what it is that makes America beautiful

and worthy of our love.

This is Chris Flannery with the Claremont Institute.

I call this one.

The Great Hudini

Where else can people who don't know anything

make so much money?

That was Minnie Marks's answer,

when somebody asked her why she encouraged her sons,

Chico, Harpo, and Groucho, to go into show business.

In the late 19th and early 20th century,

the sons of Jewish immigrants in America

frequently did go into show business. But it wasn't just the money for the young

Eric Weiss. He needed the money, but he lived for fame and by the time he was

17 he had decided how to get it.

He would become Houdini.

Eric Weiss was born in Budapest on March 24th, 1874, and arrived in America when he was four years old.

His father, a rabbi, had brought his growing family from Budapest to the small town of Appleton, Wisconsin.

By the time Eric was eight, his father had lost his job and the family was living in poverty. They moved to Milwaukee, taking their poverty with them.

There are no clear records of Eric going to school, but he did work as a news boy and a shoe shine boy,

and at the age of nine, he offered his first public performance

...