The Talented Mrs. Mandlebaum is absolutely fascinating. From Germany to New York and then Canada, author Margalit Fox recounts how being a Jewish immigrant uniquely positioned and prepared Fredericka “Ma” Mandlebaum to become one of the richest and most successful crime bosses of her day. Seriously, the scope of Mandlebaum’s enterprise and the sums of goods she dealt in were astounding. Fox expertly brings the times and key players to life. And one of my favorite things about the book is how Fox details the ways in which Mandlebaum pulled off her many heists.

Maybe non-fiction isn’t your typical read, but if the thought of learning more about a Jewish woman who wore the hats of wife, mother, philanthropist and CRIME BOSS in the 1850s, then I suggest you give this book a go!

A fascinating true crime story, rich in historical detail. Before reading this novel, I knew nothing about Mrs Mandelbaum, and now I am intrigued by this narrative. She came from rags to riches and skillfully planned complex heists.
Many thanks to Random House and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC.

There are plenty of aspects of American history that we only learn about through our own personal interests. Crime during the Gilded Age has always fascinated me. It was a time of rapid expansion and opportunity, but only if you were in the right place at the right time. Margalit Fox theorized that if Frederika Mandelbaum had not started her crime syndicate ten years earlier or later, she would not have been anywhere near as successful. While the time was definitely on Mandelbaum's side, her own shrewdness is what really kept her in business for so long.

Mandelbaum came to the states, a German Jewish immigrant. She made her way into fencing, and knew how to build loyalty in everyone around her. Her neighbors were taken care of whenever they experienced hardship. Her thieves were given a fair cut and rescued from jail time. The police force got their palms greased regularly. And her empire grew. The thing that makes it all the more hilarious to me is that due to the massive corruption of the time, everyone knew what she did and yet she stayed in business. She was beloved by pretty much everyone that came into contact with her. She planned heists, trained shoplifters, threw lavish dinner parties, and dripped with stolen diamonds while she did it. The more you read, the more you grow to love her as well.

This is definitely a woman from American history that you should know about. With everything she had going against her at the time, it was amazing that she was able to get a foothold. But Mom Mandelbaum didn't just get a foothold. She built her own underworld sovereignty.

Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum, crime in old New York

At first I wasn’t sure, “The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum” didn’t sound like my type of book. I had never heard of this women and certainly had no idea about the talented part. But the subtitle “The Rise and Fall of an American Organized-Crime Boss” got me interested.

Then I read the description on Netgalley and it made me give it a try. It starts like this:

"In 1850, an impoverished twenty-five-year-old named Fredericka Mandelbaum came to New York in 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 was she able to ascend from tenement poverty to vast wealth?"

This sounded interesting. Certainly an unusual and unexpected story. For me, it was made even more interesting because many of my ancestors came through New York City in the mid-to-late 1800s. But even without that extra genealogy interest, it would be interesting. I thank Random House and Netgalley for the allowing me to read the book before publication. It goes on sale July 2.

The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum: The Rise and Fall of an American Organized-Crime Boss by Margalit Fox is a fascinating book. I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in true crime or the history of New York.

I’m dnfing this one. When there are so many footnotes that it distracts from the story, i’m finished.
I love a few footnotes but this was extreme. The writing was good I just couldn’t carry on.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the early copy in exchange for a honest review.

The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum: The Rise and Fall of an American Organized-Crime Boss by Margalit Fox is a captivating and engaging book. Fox possesses a remarkable ability to bring historical figures to life, and Fredericka Mandelbaum is one of her most intriguing subjects to date. Through Fox's skillful storytelling, readers are taken on a journey into the fascinating world of this notorious organized crime boss.

It turns out that crime does pay! Especially if you become a fence in NYC during the mid to late 1800s. A woman named Fredericka Mandelbaum found this all out way back in 1850. Her life of crime is chronicled in Margalit Fox's The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum.

For those looking for a deep dive into Mandelbaum's inner life, you may be a bit disappointed. Mandelbaum's life as a criminal meant she wasn't writing a daily diary of her thoughts and activities. As an arch criminal, that would have been a very bad idea. However, Fox does what every great historical true crime author does. She drops you into Mandelbaum's world and the people within it. This includes crooked cops, master thieves, pickpockets, shady lawyers, and cultural touchstones like rampant antisemitism! You think Twitter is bad? You should see the words a New York paper would put on its front page back in the day.

I really enjoyed the book and the details Fox is so adept at finding and presenting to the reader. My personal favorite is always a good bank heist and they don't disappoint. Sure, I would have loved to learn a little more about "Marm" Mandelbaum herself, but then again, I probably wouldn't believe a word she said.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Random House Publishing.)

The cover and title definitely drew me in.

This is the history of Mrs. Mandelbaum but it was very well written and just very interesting to read. The woman was amazing and could definitely fit in with the organized crime that she was involved in. Played very well.

They author did great researching to write the book.


Thanks NetGalley for letting me read and review.

This biography of Fredericka “Marm” Mandelbaum is more than just the story of a poor German Jewish immigrant who used the criminal underworld to reign as a key figure of organized crime over twenty-five years during the Gilded Age in New York. It tells the story of the top receiver of stolen goods running a criminal enterprise while gaining great power and wealth, ultimately amassing a fortune estimated at more than $1 million by 1880. “Marm Mandelbaum, having four children and later widowed, operated as a criminal fence to street gangs, blackmailers, shoplifters and confidence men. Mandelbaum recruited and taught criminals how to pickpocket. She was involved in the financing of criminals and the organization of burglaries including the 1869 Ocean National Bank robbery and the 1878 Manhattan Savings Institution robbery. “Marm” ran a dry goods store and owned two warehouses including property in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Passaic, New Jersey and Albany, New York where she resold stolen goods, buying and selling as much as $10 million worth of stolen property. . She was also a hostess to New York’s high society, serving lavish dinners to judges, police officials and politicians. She retained a law firm who specialized in criminals and paid them a retainer of $5000 {$136,500 today} to keep her out of jail.
The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum is a thorough, erudite history of politics, law enforcement, gangs, crimes, and society during the years between 1862 and 1884. The book is a remarkable recounting of the beginnings of the Pinkerton Detective Agency and it tells the stories of well-known criminals and gangs of the time, as well as describing the corruption of the police force and politicians. It explains the influences of the Gilded Age, the Golden Age of Robbery, and the “underground economic system” upon her criminal activities and refers to Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall and extradition laws between the U.S. and Canada {where Mandelbaum flees to escape prosecution}, The text covers robber barons, women in gangs, the Five Point gangs, white collar crime, the American Bar Association, the American Medical Association, and the Industrial Revolution, It cites A History of Crime in England by Victorian barrister Luke Owen Pike and the history of fencing back to the 1710s and 1720s. There are a multitude of explanatory notes as well as illustrations. It is a educational, thought-provoking, in-depth, intellectual biography. It is easy to read and flows well but if you are expecting the book to simply be a biography of the first organized-crime lord with a limited background of the the times in which Mrs. Mandelbaum worked and lived, you will find this book overwhelming. It is a detailed work of historical research worthy of scholars and those of us who enjoy a well-rounded narrative with impeccable footnotes and content notes. The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum left me academically exhausted but well satiated.

This book is more than just a history of Mrs Mandelbaum. Her story by itself is spectacular. A world famous fence with a talent for organized crime. The author also tells a little about Kleindeutschland in New York City, the history of New York city's police force, safe cracking in the 1800s, and even the Pinkertons. The book is well-written and researched. A truly interesting read.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the ARC.

I was really intrigued by the topic for this book. My issue with the book was that honestly it came off as boring. It felt like there was not a lot of content available about the title character and that there was not enough to fill up the whole book and so extraneous details were given about other surrounding figures (like lawyers or other criminals) or the history of crime in the US and England. I did finished the book, but I have to admit that I could not wait for it to be over. There was really no story or plot. It was just a series of facts about the total character and her associates and the time in which they lived.

I went into this book having zero knowledge of Fredericka "Marm" Mandelbaum. Margalit Fox did a wonderful job researching her, and subsequently telling her story. It's not often you hear about women in the 1800s making their fortunes by anything other than houses of ill repute.
I was fascinated by the fortune amassed by Mandelbaum as a fence. She was wildly successful! Thank you NetGalley and Random House for approving my request to read this book. You really do learn something new everyday!

“The aim of the department store…was to foment desire,” Margalit Fox writes in The Talented Mrs. Mandlebaum, creating an “epidemic of longing” fueled by advertisements. The American housewife not only longed for a showplace home, it was socially required. But how could a middle class income support such a lifestyle?

Criminals stole goods and fenced them, and then they were sold at discount. The public was happy, and the criminal organization was very happy.

One of the most successful criminal operations was run by Mrs. Fredericka Mandelbaum in whose drawing room could be found the wealthy and priviledged class. She was a remarkable woman, beloved by her family, a philanthropist, involved in her synagogue; a successful business woman and crime boss with a loyal cadre of thieves who called her ‘Marm’–mother.

Margalit Fox takes readers deep into Marm Mandelbaum’s life and world, from her specially designed shopfront with hidden rooms for stolen goods to her luxurious black silk dresses dripping with diamonds. It took decades, but the Pinkertons finally introduced a mole into her operation to get evidence of wrongdoing. Then, she fled and lived for decades in Canada!

A large, imposing woman, characterized in cartoons and newspaper illustrations with grotesque Jewish characteristics, her intelligence must have been remarkable. As a German immigrant in the late 19th c. her options for providing for her family was limited. But I can imagine that had she been a man, she could have been anything–perhaps a tycoon of industry, a Pinkerton detective, or a political boss.

True crime lovers will relish this biography of a forgotten, once infamous, crime boss.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book.

Fox plunges readers into the captivating realm of Fredericka Mandelbaum, a formidable presence in the criminal underworld of New York during the Gilded Age. Rather than simply chronicling Mandelbaum's escapades, Fox dissects our idealized perceptions of the period, uncovering a multifaceted tapestry of power struggles and societal biases.

(3.5)

I’m always curious to learn about different people, places, and periods in history that I have little to no knowledge of. In the case of The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum, I went in with absolutely no foreknowledge. In general, I’m not super well-versed in the era of the 1800s.

The book discusses the rags-to-riches life story of Frederika Mandelbaum. Starting out as a peddler, she ended up with ties to the underworld and ultimately became an entrepreneur. With 19th Century New York as a backdrop, the book offers not only a biography of Mrs. Mandelbaum, but also a look at the climate of the times. The book is rich with photographs which add to the atmosphere.

While I found the topic interesting and I was taken with the setting, I didn’t latch onto Fredericka. The book had a tendency to stray, so maybe that was a contributing factor for me even though I did find the side players interesting as well. The topics of the book were another reason I struggled to connect on a personal level.

Overall, the research is solid and is presented well. A good read for history lovers!

A huge thanks to Random House and NetGalley for inviting me to read a digital ARC of the book!

Thank you Netgalley and Random House for giving me an eARC to review.

I thought this was a well structured and researched book about organized crime in general and specific instances in Mrs. Mandelbaum's life. I especially loved all of the details about bank heists, how her fencing organization worked, and how she was eventually 'caught' and her defense. There was a lot great information that I never knew about organized crime and the excesses of the rich in Golden Age New York.

Unfortunately, this book did suffer a bit from the overabundance of information. I specifically found the footnotes really distracting and wish more of them were incorporated into the text for a smoother reading experience. My eARC also was basically 50% endnotes, which may look different when in printed format. One other minor beef I had was that the author kept writing "a historian" instead of citing which exact writer/researcher/historian stated her fact. Perhaps that was in the end notes, but it happened enough for me to notice the pattern.

Overall though, I think this book was a great read and I'm tempted to see what else Margalit Fox wrote. If you're looking for an interesting read about the Golden Age of Organized Crime in New York, give this one a go.

Fredericka was the daughter of German Jews and immigrated with her husband, Wolf Mandelbaum, a year after the birth of their first child in 1850. Together they settled in Kleindeutschland, or "Little Germany," in New York City. With limited prospects for women at this time, she took the opportunity to become the protégée of master fence, "General Abe" Greenthal. With him she established lucrative relationships and became an expert in appraisal. By the end of the 1850s, "Marm" Mandelbaum was a full-blown entrepreneur. In 1864, she opened her own shop and eventually an entire building in 1873. After years of building an empire, her downfall in 1884 would be at the hands of the one and only Pinkertons.

Fredericka Mandelbaum lived a life quite unlike any other woman of her time and was as successful as any gangster, crime boss, or robber baron. However, by the end of this book, I still felt like I only knew the bare facts of her life. It's said she became "renowned as a mentor to underworld women" and made several connections across state lines, but how? Where's the talent? It's said that her longtime attorneys went to "lavish extremes in her defense" before her final fall but in what way? Of her husband Wolf and her protégée Sophie Lyons, I learned only little, and her son Julius is non-existent until he is arrested. Fox certainly sets the scene with the ins and outs of the game. It covers the rise of the highly-skilled shoplifters and burglars (including major heists,) the corruption of Gilded Age New York City, and even whole chapters on 18th century extortionist Jonathan Wild and detective Allan Pinkerton. Fox describes her as an attentive wife and mother, a generous synagogue-goer, an otherwise upstanding member of her community, but there's nothing in the book to support that. Sadly, Mandelbaum appears as a background character to her own story.

This was 2.5 out of 5 for me, but thank you Netgalley and Random House for approving my request!

The story of Fredericka Mandelbaum is pretty interesting. The tales of how her agents committed crimes are definitely attention grabbing as well, but the real strong points of this book is how it fleshes out the world of the late 1800s, especially New York City, in the U.S. You get a much better appreciation for why certain jobs and criminals existed. Of course a lot of this means that the story meanders a bit into bit players in the overall narrative, which can be distracting at times, though overall not a bad read.

This was a very involved story about “Marm” Mandelbaum and her long successful career as a big-time fence in mid 1800s New York. For several decades, she wielded heady power as she ran her business and amassed a fortune. Mrs. Mandelbaum had an amazing head for crime, and came up with many ways to organize it into a business.

The true tale of how a poor German immigrant to New York City in the late 1800's rose to become arguably the first crime boss in America. Her story is fascinating and Mrs. Fox does a masterful job in weaving historical details and background perspectives to make it all come alive. Mrs. Mandelbaum was a product of the times in terms of her part of the intricate web of corruption that plagued all of New York society, business and government at that time. The author does a good job of documenting the facts and including endnotes and footnotes to help the reader with perspectives on current comparable values of items and wages. I would rate this 5 out of 5 stars. It was well written, and I enjoyed learning about the inner workings of business and the network of corruption as well as how Mrs. Mandelbaum successfully organized her "business". If you enjoy true crime stories or even non fiction history, this would be an excellent choice.