Fredericka “Marm” Mandelbaum (with Allison Epstein)

Vulgar History Podcast

Fredericka “Marm” Mandelbaum (with Allison Epstein)

February 19, 2025

Ann: Hello and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women’s history comedy podcast, my name is Ann Foster. I’m joined today by a very special guest, I think, the person who’s been the guest the most times on this podcast. It’s the one and only Allison Epstein. 

Allison: Hello, friends. That’s a title I’m very happy to keep. Welcome, to me. 

Ann: The person you’re going to have to fight is Lana Wood Johnson. When we get into the Habsburgs of this season, she’s going to start… 

Allison: I will step back, and she can take the title when we get to that part. 

Ann: [laughs] Yeah. Thank god, she’s going to be there for that. 

So, Allison, before we get started, there are, I think, two to three important things to say. Last time, when you were on here promoting your previous book, I was like, “Okay, everybody, here’s the five specific things you all need to do.” Again, today, there’s various things to instruct everybody to do. But the first thing we’re doing is we’re wishing somebody happy birthday. That is a person named Carmen, whose mom, Irma, messaged me to say that Carmen has recently graduated from UCLA with a degree in history, huge accomplishment. Congratulations, Carmen, and it’s also her birthday and she listens to Vulgar History with her mom. Irma just wanted something special for Carmen, having graduated and it’s her birthday. So, happy birthday, Carmen! 

Allison: Happy birthday, Carmen. Congratulations on graduation. That’s awesome. 

Ann: It’s a huge accomplishment to get a history degree, and also, I think it’s very nice to have a mother and daughter who get along. I was thinking, have I ever had people we’ve talked about in the podcast who are mother and daughter who got along? I thought about it, I was like, not Fredegund because she and her daughter did not get along. 

Allison: Not Queen Margot, that was my next guess. 

Ann: No, Catherine de’ Medici, not a great mother of daughters. Marie de Guise, I guess, for Mary Queen of Scots. They weren’t together, but she was there for her, in a way. The best one, and we haven’t really talked about it on the podcast, but in history, Catherine of Aragon and Mary I, they had a strong bond. 

Allison: Yes, love that for them.

Ann: Yeah, but I was like, huh! Mothers and daughters. We’ve had a lot of mothers with shitty sons who become kings or emperors when the mother should really be in charge. But I was like, mothers and daughters, it’s not a thing that comes up a lot on this podcast. But also because we’ve talked a lot of history periods where people weren’t hands-on parenting. 

Allison: You do have a lot of mothers naming daughters after themselves, which I think is a good sign for strong mother-daughter bonds. 

Ann: It is, and you know who is a good mother? Caroline of Brunswick, to her daughter, Princess Charlotte. 

Allison: And to all the other babies that she found. [laughs] 

Ann: [laughs] She was a woman with a strong maternal instinct, and she just flung it out wherever she could because she had to do something with all that maternal energy. 

Anyway, Allison, so a couple of things that people need to know. This episode is coming out towards the end of February, and at the end of February, your book is being published! 

Allison: It sure is. This is a wild time to be Allison Epstein, but my third novel, Fagin the Thief, is coming out in the U.S. and Canada on February the 25th. So, if you are in those territories or can get those territories to ship to you, that is when that book will be available. 

Ann: So, Canada and the US, for now. But I mean, there’s ways, the internet exists, people can order things. I hope that your book gets a publisher in the UK because I think it would be really cool for people there to read it just because of the Britishness of it all. 

Allison: I want that so much. Tits Out Brigade, if you know a UK publisher, you can send them my information, that would be great. 

Ann: Absolutely. You know what? Tits Out Brigade, they’re in every— [chuckles] They’re like my Flying Squadron, they’re just like in every city, in every industry. I’m sure there’s somebody somewhere. But so, Fagin the Thief, tell everybody what your book is about. Because for reasons we’re going to talk about in a bit, we’re not actually talking about your book today. So, talk about your book now. 

Allison: No, this is my 30-second pitch for the book that we are, in fact, not talking about in this episode. Fagin the Thief is an Oliver Twist retelling. So, Ann has already done So This Asshole Charles Dickens so I don’t have to do that. But this book is partly my “Fuck you, Charles Dickens,” book. It is a retelling of Oliver Twist from Fagin’s point of view, the notoriously anti-Semitic villain of that book. So, it’s giving him a backstory from his childhood through how he became the terrible villain that everybody knows from their high school English classes. It’s the book of my heart. I love it so much, and I am so excited for people to read it. 

Ann: I want to just also shout out to people like me who don’t know Fagin from their high school English classes but from high school musical productions. 

Allison: Yes, also very famous from Oliver! the musical, which I will tell you everybody, probably eight out of ten people I’ve told I’m writing this book have gone, “Oh, I played Bill Sikes,” or Fagin or the Artful Dodger, “in my elementary school production of Oliver!” which I think is great. 

Ann: Oliver! was done by the high school in my city when I wasn’t in high school yet, so it was, like, my older sister’s generation. And so, I’m just thinking the trajectory… I forget the name of this actor. He was so good, this high school actor who was the star of all the shows. And so they did Oliver! one year, and he played Fagin, and it was so good. It’s a great role for, like, a charismatic performer. 

Allison: It’s the best part of that play. No question, yeah. 

Ann: The songs are so good. And then the next year they did Fiddler on the Roof, and he played Tevye. 

Allison: I have one follow-up question. Was this individual Jewish, or was this just quite a two years for this guy? [laughs] 

Ann: This was a Jewish actor. 

Allison: Excellent. Good for him. 

Ann: And I think they saw what he did with Fagin, and the next year, they chose to do Fiddler on the Roof because of him, I’m pretty sure. 

Allison: Love that trajectory for him, that’s great. We did Fiddler on the Roof in my high school, and I had the lead role in Fiddler on the Roof, by which I mean I played the clarinet in the pit band, and that was the most glorious moment of my high school career. 

Ann: Oh, fantastic. Okay. So, today we’re not talking about Fagin the Thief and Allison, can you reveal to everybody where we will be you and I talking about Fagin the Thief? Which is not in a podcast. 

Allison: Which is not in a podcast. We’re not talking about my book today because Ann and I are going to talk about my book in real life, in person, at the book event that we’re doing together in the first week of March. So, we will be live and in person on, oh god, I should have looked up the date. It’s March 4th, right? 

Ann: March 4th. 

Allison: There we go. In Minneapolis, Minnesota at Magers and Quinn Bookstore. Ann is my in-conversation partner for my book tour stop in Minneapolis, which I’m so jazzed about. 

Ann: I’m really excited. Listeners, like people who have listened to some of my lowest listened to episodes “Ann Answers Q&A’s” will know that Allison and I have never met in person before. So, this is a monumental occasion that I’m going to be… 

Allison: Yesterday, Ann asked me, “How tall are you?” [laughs] So, we look forward to finding that out in person. 

Ann: Yeah, exactly, see if we were telling the truth or not. I had to make some real shoe decisions about this event. But I’m so excited to be doing this event. Yeah, and it’s free! Everybody who lives in Minneapolis or St. Paul, which I understand is not the same city, but it’s next to it, but you can get there easily. So, Magers and Quinn, which is in uptown, Minneapolis on Tuesday, March 4th. And while I’m in Minneapolis, I’m also going to be doing a meetup for the Tits Out Brigade the next day. So, could not be offering more to the people of Minneapolis, [laughs] seeing you and I in person, and then also we’re going to be doing a meetup the next day. So anyway, if people, so they go to, actually your website is probably the best thing, to register to go to the book event, which is free, but they want people to register. 

Allison: Yes, AllisonEpstein.com. There’s a little events button you can click on, it will have info for our event. And if you’re not in Minneapolis, but you’re elsewhere around, I have other events coming up. A couple of them are virtual, so all of the Brigade is welcome to attend if you would like to. It was so fun to see Tits Out Brigade members in person on my book tour for my last book, it was the best thing. So, y’all are amazing, and I hope to see you again this time. 

Ann: And I think any Tits Out Brigade member who reads your book is going to get a special treat in the acknowledgments page. 

Allison: I will neither confirm nor deny that. 

Ann: Gotta pick up a copy and flip to the back and see if there’s something there for you! But yeah, so you’re going on tour, you have this book. We’re going to be talking about the book in Minneapolis on March the 4th. 

And so, I was like, we’re not going to, well, we came to a podcast about that too because then we’d be talking about the same thing twice. And then you found, spiritually… [Allison laughs] Okay, spiritually, a story of a woman who’s got Fagin energy. Fagin being a fictional character who lived in England, and you found a real-life person who lived in America who was also a Jewish thief. 

Allison: Yes, I found a person who is Fagin energy (positive). Also, I have a nasty tendency to keep writing books about men. So, I wanted to find Fagin vibes, positive (the Lady Fagin). So, very excited to tell this story on the podcast today. 

Ann: And I’m excited for, well, obviously for a gazillion reasons, but one of them is also because this is a Jewish character and I mean, person, real-life person. 

Allison: [laughs] Quite a character though. 

Ann: Honestly, yes. But yeah, I always want to find people who are not Christian to talk about on this podcast. And yeah, anyway, you found one. You found one, and she’s great. So, this is one of those episodes where Allison is going to be telling the story, and I will be listening with the rest of you in rapt attention. 

So, Allison, please, who are we talking about today? 

Allison: We are talking about Fredericka Mandelbaum, often called Marm Mandelbaum, so that’s how I’m referring to her. My notes have her title as “the Gilded Age crime boss and the most devious bastard in New York City.” She is fabulous, and I am delighted to tell her story. I’m doing a thing my publicist is going to lose her mind about because I’m on here to talk about somebody else’s book, but I read a fantastic biography of Marm Mandelbaum, which is called The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum by Margalit Fox. I loved this book. I keep calling it The Marvelous Mrs. Mandelbaum, which is not the name of the book, that’s the Amazon Prime story— That is my number one source for the story I’m about to tell. 

Ann: And I do want to also just shout out Gilded Age crime boss, like, we talked about Cassie Chadwick a few weeks ago with Annie Reed talking about her book. So, Cassie Chadwick was, she was sort of, like, the classy version of what Marm was up to. Cassie Chadwick was up with the Carnegies and in these, like, fancy ballrooms pretending to be an heiress. And Marm Mandelbaum, again, I’ve not read all of the notes you sent me, they’re very long. 

Allison: [laughs] I got excited. 

Ann: But I feel like she’s more like in the streets, right?

Allison: Here’s the thing, yes and no. But if Cassie Chadwick is the uptown version, this is the downtown version, absolutely. 

Ann: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, I love Marm Mandelbaum just as a name. It just sounds like somebody from, like, Uncle Scrooge comics or something. 

Allison: And what I love about this, because we started our episode with mothers and daughters, that’s, like, old-timey slang for “Mom,” because she was just the mom mob boss of the late-1800s in New York. So, she’s— 

Ann: So, people now would call her Mother. 

Allison: They’d be like- They’d be like Mama Mandelbaum, let’s go hang out. Yeah, she’s the best. 

Okay. So, to start her story of crime bossing in New York City, we have to start with her original young life, which started in 1827. She was born Fredericka Weisner in the city of Kessel. And I asked myself, “Where is Kessel?” It’s Germany now, it wasn’t Germany then. [Ann sighs] Once again, I don’t understand Germany, and I refuse to learn. 

Ann: Can I just say, because it’s you and I and tangents are going to happen, but I have just finished writing a book, Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain’s Uncrowned Queen, pre-order soon. 

Allison: Can we underline “Just finished writing a book”? Finished. Ann’s done with her draft. 

Ann: I did finish writing my book, but it involves so much not-Germany. 

Allison: So much not-Germany! 

Ann: It’s so hard to write about! And it also involves not-Italy…

Allison: Augh! Even worse!

Ann: … where it’s just like, I want to say like “She went to Italy.” It’s like, no, I can’t because Italy is not a thing. “She went to Naples.” Anyway, but the not-Germany of it all, it’s like, well, they are German people, they’re Germanic people, and they speak German, but it’s not Germany. And it’s so hard to talk around that. So, I respect you not learning about it, and I don’t think anyone should, okay. 

Allison: And we don’t need to for very long because this is, among many other things, an immigration story, so it’s fine. [laughs] So, I’m going to keep calling her Marm throughout this story, just because that’s easier. So, Marm got married when she was 21 to a man named Wolfe Mandelbaum, who was 23. They seem to have really loved each other. They have a very nice marriage, and also his name is Wolfe, which I think is fabulous. So, good for him. 

Ann: Can I just tell you something? Because you said she was born 1827, right? 

Allison: Yes. 

Ann: So, I was just being like, when was our last Jewish character born? Rachel, born 1821. 

Allison: Oh! I didn’t realize they were contemporaries. 

Ann: Contemporaries, yeah. 

Allison: That’s funny because I completely separate France and New York in the 19th century. They are completely different timelines, so it never occurred to me this is the same time. 

Ann: Yeah, yeah. Also, like, just that she’s called Marm, it reminds me of the episode we did about Madame Tussaud where we were talking about, like, as a little girl, and we still call her Madame Tussaud… 

Allison: Madame T. [laughs]

Ann: … even though she was not Tussaud, and she was not yet married, but she’s just a little girl and she’s little Madame Tussaud. So, Marm Mandelbaum. She’s just this little girl. She’s already Marm. 

Allison: That’s just, like, Grandma Mandelbaum; she’s 21 years old. Don’t worry about it, it’s fine. So, while they were in Germany, both Marm and her husband Wolfe probably had jobs of some kind. They were probably peddlers, which is like you’ve got a little cart, and you go around and you sell things, one of the classic jobs available to Jewish people in Europe at this time. 

Ann: That was the job of Rachel’s parents. 

Allison: There you go. [laughs] But you don’t make a lot of money doing that, so in the 1840s, Wolfe went ahead and immigrated to New York Citay and started to set down roots, and Marm would follow him in 1850. 

Ann: So, this is giving me Fievel Goes West: An American Tale vibes. 

Allison: Exactly! Yes, it is. If Fievel then went to crime, we’ll get to the crime. 

Ann: An American Tale, Part Three. 

Allison: Yes, American Tale, Part Three: It All Goes to Hell. Okay. So, they set up in New York City. I think they’re in like, I should have written down what the neighbourhood is now, but back then it was, like, Little Germany. So, this is where all of the Jewish immigrants tended to go, they would set up their own kind of neighbourhood. So, they moved there, set up their own building— Set up, sorry, their own business, more or less doing the same thing they had been doing in Germany; they’re street peddlers, except now it’s in New York City and they’re trying to make a go of it here. 

Over time, they’ll have four kids together: two sons and two daughters. So, she’s literally Mama Mandelbaum within the next… I’m not going to talk about Wolfe a lot in this story because he doesn’t really do anything, but in a positive way. Like, he’s never in the way, he’s never complaining. He’s always just booping about doing his business. And so, I just want to say at this point in the story, respect for Wolfe Mandelbaum for minding his business. 

Ann: Yeah, it’s a rare and lovely thing in a story on this podcast to have a husband who’s not actively ruining the— He’s just like, “You do you.” Like, you were on the episode, the one about Empress Elisabeth, and she had her, like, boyfriend who just planned parties for her and stuff. 

Allison: Her good guy boyfriend! Yes! [laughs] 

Ann: Yeah, it’s just kind of like, “Okay, Wolfe, it’s just like good for you. Like just stay out of her way and just like respect the queen who you’re with, and that’s cool.” 

Allison: He knew, he was lucky. And he’s like, this is great. 

Ann: He’s like, “I’m Tom Holland, you’re a Zendaya, and I’m comfortable with this.” 

Allison: Yes! [laughs] That’s very secure, and I love that about him. 

Okay, so now we have Marm, early thirties, living on the Lower East Side in New York City, being a street peddler with four kids and a husband who’s fine. And that is a recipe for a pretty standard immigrant life in New York City at this time. But Marm is not interested in having a standard immigrant life; she wants to be rich and famous and fabulous. So, she says, “Okay, I’m already here working as a street peddler. I’m selling things on the street. What if I start buying things off the street? What if I start buying things from criminals off the street?” And that’s step one from standard business into crime mogul. 

She starts very small. So, it’s like, a pickpocket runs up to her on the street and is like, “I stole this tie pin off of a guy walking by, but it’s got his initials on it, so I can’t sell it. What do I do with this?” And Marm says, “Great, you give it to me. It’s going to cost you 50 cents. I’m going to take it home. I’m going to take these initials out, I’m going to make sure that no one can trace this. And then I’m going to sell it for $5,” which at the time, like, inflation between 1850 and 2025 is hilarious. So, when I’m saying like $5, that’s shit tons of money. 

Ann: Right, right. But also, you just explained so elegantly something that I’ve never really understood, which is fencing. This is what being a fence is. 

Allison: She’s the most famous fence in New York City. She is not herself a thief because she is, as she will be as her career gets better, an upstanding Jewish mother of four who goes to the synagogue every Friday night and, like, just wants to mind her business, but she’s the most successful fence maybe. 

Ann: And so, like today, the vibes would be someone who’s like, “Oh yeah, no, this,” I don’t know, “TV, it just fell out of a truck. Do you want to buy it for $50?” Yeah, she’s that person.

Allison: Yeah, the book The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum has a really interesting chapter on why fences were so important at this point in history, which I have never really thought about before. But like, today, everything’s pretty much mass-produced. A TV looks like a TV, right? And if you have one, no one’s going to be able to look at it and say, “Oh, I know you got this TV from the Best Buy on 48th and Clark, so now I know this is stolen.” 

But back in like, right now, Marm Mandelbaum was immediately before the American Civil War, so back then, this was like just before the Industrial Revolution kind of started to hit, and mass production was happening. At this point, when she’s starting out her career, everything is artisanal, everything is handmade, everything is like put into this… You rarely really have a mass-produced diamond; you have a diamond that’s carved in a particular way, set in a brooch, that you know who made that brooch based on the way it looks. People who are making, like, fine silks are sewing their initials of their factory into the weave of the silk. Like, everything is super bespoke. So, it’s really hard, if you’re just your standard thief who ran into a store and grabbed the thing, you can’t then go to someone and say, “Hey, you want to buy this thing that’s clearly stolen?” You need someone who knows how to get it and make sure that no one can trace it before. So, like, money laundering, but with objects. 

Ann: Okay, okay. Wow, I didn’t know that thing with the silk. That’s bananas, but makes sense. And yeah, it’s not just like today. It’s like, “I’m just going to rip out this tag and say like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s a Chanel purse’” or whatever. 

Allison: Exactly, yeah, take the ink tag off. It’s fine, like no, no, no, you can’t do that. You’ve got to have a team to make sure no one can find this stuff. 

Ann: Okay, and I presume she has a team? 

Allison: She will get a team. Pretty soon, she’s going to assemble a team. She starts small, like, individual thief to thief, then she starts making money. And once you start making money, you think, “Okay, how am I going to escalate this situation?” She reminds me a lot of Madame Tussaud actually because she has business sense like nobody else. She sees this is working, and she’s like, “I need to set up an operation.” 

So, her first stop is to buy a dry goods store, which is like the old-timey general stores; you can go in and buy a bag of flour and a bar of soap, and they’ll take it off the shelves for you. She gets one of those. 

Ann: Like a Little House in the Prairie, little store sort of thing. 

Allison: Exactly, like if you need a ball of twine and some loose oats, that’s where you go. She leases the building at first because she’s lived in America for five years, she doesn’t have that much money. But she uses this as a shop where she sells mostly legal things, but sometimes a really, really nice piece of fabric that maybe you’re getting a very good price on because it’s not altogether legal. So, she’s kind of blending in, like, “You can come in here and get your groceries, but if you’re here on a Tuesday, you could probably get a small collection of diamonds that I may have stolen from someone.” 

Ann: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I love, like with Madame Tussaud, that’s a great comparison, because just people who, women specifically, who have this business sense and it’s so natural. Like today, people, you get a business coach, or you watch the Masterclass, people don’t just… To have these skills, to just invent this way of being, is really impressive to me. It seems like, you haven’t mentioned any sort of mentor, she’s just figuring this out. 

Allison: Yeah, she’s like, “I see a business opportunity, and I took that opportunity, and then I took that opportunity, and I built on it to make something even better.” And what’s just so good for her at this point is like, Gilded Age New York City is such a lawless place that not only is nobody getting in her way, but people are, like, willing to go to her. She becomes famous for her ability to facilitate this kind of crime. 

Ann: I don’t know if this is coming up in your notes or not, but in this sort of situation, I would imagine she needs to be friendly with local police or authorities or somebody who’s going to turn, like, a blind eye to what she’s doing. 

Allison: It is, and we’re going to get into that because she gets so connected to everybody. But for the moment, I’m not sure how much into, like, New York, Gilded Age history you’ve gotten in previous episodes, but this is like, Tammany Hall, Boss Tweed era. Boss Tweed was one of the more famous corrupt politicians in Gilded Age New York because he grafted everything that could be grafted. Like, it was comical, the amount of money that he stole from people while being in politics, and this is his time. So, just to set the vibe, every single person here is corrupt. 

Ann: So, it’s like not a big— She’s doing this, but it’s not, she’s not doing this in, like, Salt Lake City and it’s just like, oh my god, Mormons, they’re all like, “Herman, my pills!” She’s just one of, okay, it’s that, what’s that movie, Gangs of New York. 

Allison: This is Gangs of New York times. Gangs of New York is set right now. 

Ann: Everyone is doing this, so no big deal. She doesn’t stand out, yeah. 

Allison: Yeah, well, this is a sidebar, but this is a you and me episode, so there will be sidebars. 

Ann: Hell yeah. 

Allison: A Boss Tweed sidebar, he became the, I don’t know if it was the mayor or the alderman or something of New York. But he started out as a volunteer firefighter and the volunteer firefighters in New York City were corrupt at this point to, like, underline how shitty it was. You would have two different volunteer firefighter situations, two different organizations that would be competing for the same fires. So, what they would do is they would go set buildings on fire themselves so that they could race their competition to the fire because you got paid by the fire. [laughs]

Ann: Oh, okay. 

Allison: So, that’s the situation that this city is right now. 

Ann: This is like… I keep trying to think, like, what to compare it to, but it’s just itself. It’s just, like, you really set the scene of like, that’s what’s happening. 

Allison: That’s where this is. And she looks around, Marm looks around and says, “Yeah, I can make this work, absolutely.” 

Ann: Yeah, it’s similar, and it’s the same time period as, like, the Wild West. It reminds me of one of those sorts of towns, but it is New York, and that’s what it’s like. 

Allison: Yes. [laughs] So, it’s one of those old West towns except everyone also has shit tons of money because it’s New York City so the stakes are high. 

Ann: And somewhere Cassie… what’s her name? 

Allison: Cassie Chadwick. 

Ann: Cassie Chadwick is just kind of being like, “Doo-doo-doo, I’m just an heiress,” and everyone’s like, “Sounds good to me.” 

Allison: Yeah, I mean, if you’re not actively lighting a building on fire, this is actually not harming anybody. 

So, one other cool thing about Marm at this point is that, like, she’s a pillar of the community in a way, at the same time as she’s being, like, the most notorious fence in New York City, because like you said, she needs to get a team of people to help her, like, get these identifying marks out of the jewels and out of the silk and whatever. So, she’s staying in Lower East Side, Little Germany, and she’s hiring immigrants and other Jews who have hard times getting jobs. And she’s like, “Hey, you want to come in my workshop and help me sell stolen jewels?” And the neighbourhood is like, “Yeah, absolutely. This is community development.” She’s helping families. People love her, her neighbours. They’re obsessed with her because she’s the reason they’re able to pay rent because she’s given them jobs. 

Ann: Yeah, yeah. This is such a… Just imagining this kind of city that’s, like, 100% all criminals. [Allison laughs] And within that, she’s a good one because she’s helping people, giving jobs to new immigrants. Yeah, the American dream. 

Allison: The American dream, literally, but with crime. Before I start portraying Marm Mandelbaum as, like, the thief with the heart of gold who just wants to help the little guy… There’s some of that, but she also just wants money and nice things, to be clear. [laughs]

Ann: Yeah. Respect, respect. No, it’s just like Cassie Chadwick also, who was just like, “I just want…” When Cassie Chadwick, again, her contemporaneous grifter, she was just like, “I want furs, I want diamonds, I want to live fancy.” And it’s, like, nothing wrong with wanting those things. 

Allison: Absolutely not. You were a peddler in not-Germany, you deserve to have a nice thing. 

So, she eventually stops receiving stolen goods, just kind of, you know, whatever people want to bring to her, and she starts going out on commission. So, thieves will come to her and say, “Hey, I know you give the best price in town for stolen goods. What do you want?” [Ann laughs] And she starts like, “Hey, I would really love you to go into that mansion over there on Fifth Avenue and steal that really cool diamond. I think that would be great.” 

Ann: Because she probably knows someone who she could sell that specifically to, or something. So, she’s sort of like a concierge service of, like, theft. 

Allison: Yeah. Now she’s a commissioning burglar, or she’s just like, “Hey, I have all the best thieves. I am starting to get my feelers out into society. Let me do a little matchmaking. Let me see if I can get this guy over there because I know you’re really good at breaking into houses. That’s a great house. Let’s set this up.” 

Ann: This is like, in terms of her, natural business ability, just the ability, another person might be like, “You know what? I’m the greatest fence in New York City. The end.” But she’s just like, “How can I grow my business more? Bespoke thefts.” The fact that she kept thinking of new ways to expand is impressive to me. 

Allison: Yeah, she’s not done yet. This is phase two of, like, seven so… [laughs] Now that she’s kind of commissioning stuff, she’s rolling in money now. She’s a modern-day millionaire. She now owns 40 houses and warehouses across the city of New York and also into New Jersey, and she’s using them as, like, stopping places for her stolen goods. So, you did a theft in Boston, she’s got a warehouse in Boston where you can come and take care of the stuff and sell it off. So, she’s getting an empire. 

Ann: Yeah, my gosh. It’s like the Underground Railroad, but for jewels. 

Allison: Yeah, and a lot of it is jewels. She liked to specialize in silk and diamonds because she’s a girl’s girl and she wants to look incredible. 

Ann: Yeah. I think you have in your notes that she would, some of the stuff she would resell and some of it, she would just keep for herself because she likes a nice dress. 

Allison: “This is really nice, actually, so I’m going to keep this silk and make myself the best dress you’ve ever seen out of it. The rest of it I’ll sell.” But she wasn’t picky. She would fence anything that would make her money. I wrote down two of my favourite examples. One of them was a herd of goats that escaped during the Chicago fire, she fenced those. 

Ann: This is Catalina de Erauso vibes. 

Allison: Exactly. [laughs] 

Ann: Like, a herd of four-legged things. [laughs]

Allison: I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know what she was doing in Chicago, but legend has it there were wild goats, and she turned them into money. 

Ann: She’s like, “I can fence these.” Yeah, okay, sure. 

Allison: “I got this.” My other favourite was 40 boxes full of 50,000 cigars, which I just thought was good. 

Ann: Well, and I’m just picturing, like, Tammany Hall and these guys, I’m sure they’re chain-smoking cigars all day. 

Allison: She’s like, “You want some more cigars that you can smoke while you do crime? I have some of those.” [both laugh] Fantastic. 

So, business opportunity number three at this point, and I want to preface this by saying that Margalit Fox’s book says this is probably apocryphal. This story I’m about to tell probably didn’t actually happen like this, however, it’s the best story, and you know how I approach history, so I don’t care. I want to tell it anyway. But legend has it that Marm Mandelbaum wanted to cement her legacy as, like, the crime boss of New York. So, she opened a school called Marm’s Grand Street School, where if you wanted to be a thief or a pickpocket or a burglar, you could enroll in this school and take lessons from Marm, and she would teach you how to be the best thief in New York. 

Ann: Everything about this is amazing, and it’s kind of Fagin energy, to bring back to your book. 

Allison: Yes! [laughs] 

Ann: But also, I feel like there’s a kind of person who would open a school like this and actually do it, and there’s a kind of person who would say they’re opening a school like this, take the tuition and then not actually teach anybody. And I feel like even though the story is maybe made up, she’s the sort of person who would teach people. 

Allison: She would! 

Ann: This is not like a Trump University scenario. 

Allison: No. And what Margalit Fox did say is, “Was there a school with a sign on it that said Marm Mandelbaum’s School for Criminals? No, probably not.” And I’ll allow that. But she definitely had proteges, like, that we do know for a fact. People would kind of come up in New York criminal society under her wing, and one of them… 

Ann: Much like Fagin. 

Allison: Much like Fain. 

Ann: And the Artful Dodger, et cetera, the plot of Oliver! 

Allison: Exactly, yeah. Her Artful Dodger, Marm’s Artful Dodger, was a woman named Sophie Levy, who came in, she brought her husband with her, Ned Levy, and they were like, “We want to be kind of a young, hot crime couple.” And Marm was like, “Yeah, absolutely. Come work with me. You guys are super smart. That’s great.”

Ann: “I can use that. I can use a young, hot couple.”

Allison: [laughs] So, Sophie would go on to be like the most famous lady pickpocket in New York City in this time. And for a while, I thought I was going to talk about her on this episode because she’s so cool. She, like, goes in disguises all over New York and robs people with her cool husband. And then the cool thing that Sophie does, I don’t know if it’s real or if it’s a scam, but in the 1870s, 1880s, she makes this big show of giving up crime and going straight. She’s like, “No, no, no. Crime is bad. We shouldn’t do it.” And she writes a memoir called Why Crime Doesn’t Pay, and it’s, like, 400 pages of all of the criminals that she knew and all of the crime they used to get up to. And she makes millions off of this book, so clearly, crime pays for her because she’s made a whole business out of it. 

Ann: Writing a memoir, and that’s, like, a Lola Montez energy of just being like, “I am notorious, great. How can I make money?” And people to this day are still… I work in a public library, [Allison laughs] and every month it’s just like, “Who is writing a memoir now? Okay.” So, it’s a tried-and-true way to make money once you’ve, kind of like, finished whatever your grift was you were doing. Write a book, yeah. 

Allison: Write a book. She thrived. She dies young and horribly in a violent crime. So, that’s why we’re not talking about her because I wanted the story that was more fun, but she is very cool. 

Ann: I picture Marm was, like, born 65 years old. 

Allison: Yes. [laughs] 

Ann: But she also lives a decent length. 

Allison: Long, full life. 

Ann: Yeah, non-spoiler warning. This story does not end with a violent death via home invasion. 

Allison: No, all good. Yes. So, she’s working up her proteges in New York, and she’s making enemies with rival fences and gangs of thieves because she’s so much better at this. 

Ann: I’m sure. Yeah, Daniel Day-Lewis with his hat.

Allison: Exactly. Her enemy was a man called Travelling Mike Grady, who ran the Grady gang. 

Ann: No. Travelling Mike?

Allison: I only brought it up because it has Bushranger energy, and I just wanted to bring that back. [laughs]

Ann: Travelling Mike. You know what? I was thinking of Ned Kelly a little bit when you’re describing some of this because Marm just had much more savvy than Ned Kelly did, for instance. 

Allison: Yeah, Ned Kelly wanted to be a criminal with a heart of gold, but he was a criminal heart of gold with no business sense. 

Ann: Yeah, yeah. He was bringing a himbo energy to it, and Marm is bringing this cut— Just the whole, the fact that she’s called Marm and she has these kids, it’s just like, I’m sure you know people like this, everybody knows people like this. Just a woman who runs her household, we are just like, “My god. If you were president of the world, everything would run so…” Somebody who is just like, “You have soccer practice, you have dance practice, we’re going to this recital.” It’s just like… Oh, what was her name? On Desperate Housewives, Bree, [Allison laughs] that character. It was just like, wow! You’re so organized, and what you do with it is be the most efficient suburban mom. Marm is bringing that energy but, being the most efficient crime boss on the East Coast, just scaling up.

Allison: [laughs] And you know, she’s still talking to all of her kids, “Also, did you brush your teeth tonight? Because I won’t know if you didn’t.” 

Ann: Yeah, exactly, exactly. 

Allison: Fabulous. One other reason, fun fact, she was called Marm Mandelbaum, it’s not just because she had four kids of her own but because she treated all of her thieves like her kids. She was, like, the crime mom boss. So, if one of her thieves that she commissioned to go out and steal something were to get arrested in the middle of the job, she was always there to bail them out. She would pay the bail, and she’d be like, “You’ll get me on the next one, it’s fine.” So, everyone was so loyal to her too because they knew “She’s got my back. She’s giving me the best price.” So, she pretty much had set up this crime empire where no one was going to betray her because they don’t have better options. 

Ann: And she is, like, in this context, to be clear, she’s a good boss. In the context of working for various criminals in New York’s Lower East Side, like, this is the boss you want. Yeah. 

Allison: She’s very efficient, she’s very profitable, and she’s cutting you a fair deal. I mean, you can’t knock that. My notes at this point say, “I have to go on a sidebar about her insane lawyers,” so I hope that’s okay because I love her lawyers. Marm Mandelbaum had two lawyers on permanent retainer. So, they were always working for her all the time because she was constantly in trouble with the law. She paid them $5,000 a year in 1880s money. 

Ann: Old-timey money. That must be, like, 5 million or something today, yeah. 

Allison: And it was worth it because these were the most criminal criminal lawyers you’ve ever heard of in the world [laughs]. They’re so great. It’s the law firm of Howe and Hummel. And I have in my notes, “They are at the PT Barnum of Gilded Age lawyers.” They literally represented PT Barnum in all of his lawsuits, so… 

Ann: Okay, so literally. 

Allison: Literally. Their specialty is circus performers and criminals, [Ann laughs] which is just, like, fabulous. 

Ann: This is, you know, they would have ads on daytime TV. This is, “If we don’t win your case, it’s free!” Like that’s these guys, yeah. 

Allison: They do the equivalent of that. But the way that they win is that, like I said, the most corrupt lawyers in the world, they’re bribing every judge in town. They’ve bribed every jury who’s ever juried. They’re paying the police directly. So, Marm knows, “Okay, I hired Howe and Hummel. Doesn’t matter what they catch me with. I’m going to get off.” 

My favourite thing about these lawyers is that they published a book in, like, the 1870s. The book is titled Danger!, much like Oliver! which I thought was fun. The point of the book Danger! is the two lawyers describe every crime that could possibly happen to you in New York City. And the ostensible purpose of this is, “Look at all of these crimes. We know about them. We can protect you from them. We’re good people and lawyers.” But what the book actually is, is a book for people who want to do crime because they describe in great detail for 500 pages, “Here’s the best way to rob a shop. Here’s the best way to rob somebody on the bus. Here’s a cool way to break into a bank.” Like, it’s incredible. [laughs]

Ann: This is so, yet again, like, this just feels 2025-coded. Like, somebody would… Just like coming up with a book like this, or the one, like “Crime doesn’t pay.” It just feels like people are exactly like this still now. 

Allison: They sure are. Yeah. The lawyer Howe of Howe and Hummel also was just quite a striking physical figure, which I mention because it’s going to come up later. He’s, like, six-and-a-half feet tall, and he would show up in court wearing, like, bright purple velvet suits covered in diamonds. [both laugh] It’s so good. 

Ann: Yeah, yeah. You want a corrupt lawyer? 

Allison: You got this guy. And he would come in and do, like, what you imagine a corrupt lawyer in the 1880s would do, you know, like, big booming voice, dramatic, “I challenge everything that’s ever happened.” You know, he objects to every— The lawyer sneezes, and he objects. 

Ann: Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah. No, everyone I’m picturing is just truly a cartoon character, but they all are so… Yeah. 

Allison: [laughs] This guy in particular. Yeah, Attorney Howe, he is drawn in magic marker, and I love him. So, that’s her business side of things. 

Meanwhile, she’s also making shit tons of money and she’s using some of the money to expand her business empire, but she’s using the rest of her money to, kind of, buy her way into New York high society which I love for her. My point of reference for this is the HBO miniseries The Gilded Age, that includes every non-working Broadway actor during COVID. Did you watch that show? 

Ann: No, I haven’t. I know that there’s a character in there who, not to say who it is because it’ll be spoilery, is Cassie Chadwick at one point. What I’m picturing is Kathy Bates in Titanic. 

Allison: Yes! That is perfect. 

Ann: Just, kind of like, a working-class person amongst these people who are born into wealth. 

Allison: Yeah, what she ends up kind of doing is setting up her equivalent of the HBO, The Gilded Age dinner party situation. You can picture a Downton Abbey party, and she’s setting it up, but in her apartment on the Lower East Side in Little Germany. She’s making her own fancy salon, and she’s inviting people from the Central Park area; she’s inviting your Rockefellers, she’s inviting your Carnegies, and they’re coming. They’re coming to dinner because she’s so rich. 

Ann: Oh, okay! Okay. Yeah. 

Allison: And she lives above the shop, the dry goods shop where she got her start fencing. She’s got an apartment above with her husband and kids, and they describe her apartment as the Lower East Side Versailles. 

Ann: Oh my god, okay. 

Allison: Because she’s so rich. [laughs]

Ann: She’s rich and tacky, I’m guessing. 

Allison: She’s rich and tacky, yes. She herself, striking figure. She’s, like, six-foot-two, she’s 250 pounds, and she is at any given moment wearing $40,000 worth of diamonds. 

Ann: I was picturing her very short this whole time, but she’s tall. That’s even more interesting. 

Allison: She’s tall. Yeah, she’s commanding when she walks into a room. 

Ann: This is, like, movie version Gwendoline Christie, but a Jewish actress. But like, that’s the stature we’re picturing. Okay, oh my gosh. 

Allison: Yeah, you’re like, “Oh fuck, you’re in charge!” 

Ann: Yeah, yeah. Okay. 

Allison: And so, she’s having these lavish dinner parties in her home with her gilded furniture and everything. But she’s also tricked out this house to be, like, the perfect criminal lair of all time. 

Ann: Okay, I was going to say, it’s interesting that she stayed living above the dry goods shop, but of course she did because of what you’re about to explain… I don’t know what you’re going to say, but I’m picturing a bookshelf, and you pull out a book and then behind that is a secret escape tunnel or something. 

Allison: No, but literally! [laughs] I’m going to go through a floor plan of the house. The book I cited literally has a floor plan with little drawings in it, it’s fantastic. But the front of it is the dry goods shop, that’s mostly legal business. But right behind the counter is this little peephole hole, and she can see behind the peephole, she has her secret parlour where she sits because she doesn’t go out and do the business anymore, she’s too rich, she’s too in charge. But she’ll sit there and watch her associates through the little peephole do the business so that she can come out and stop them if anything is going bad and she can keep an eye on the law. So, she’s got her own little secret watch room. 

And then in her, like, sitting room, in the living quarters, this is my favourite part of her house, she’s got a fireplace with a standard chimney in it, but the chimney has a fake front to it. So, you could pull down like a screen in front of the chimney. And when you do that, there’s a little elevator behind it, like a little dumb waiter in the chimney. 

Ann: Nooo! 

Allison: Yes. 

Ann: [hushed tone] A secret dumb waiter in the chimney, my god. 

Allison: So, if the cops are coming and she’s, like, etching the marks out of the jewels and the cops come in and she’s like, “Fuck, I’ll put it in my secret chimney elevator and all the jewels go up in the chimney,” poof, everything’s fine. 

Ann: I have had—I don’t think I’ve said this on the podcast—a lifelong fascination with dumb waiters. Dumb waiters are my favourite thing. Like, I read about them and, like, I used to read a lot of children’s books about people in old haunted houses meeting ghosts or whatever and there was always a scene where a little kid has to escape in a dumb waiter and I was just like, “Oh, dumb waiters are the coolest thing I’ve ever heard.” There’s an old mansion where I grew up that you would go on class visits, and I’m just like, “[gasps] There’s a dumb waiter.” And I’m just like, I, a little kid would escape in that dumb waiter. One of the libraries in Saskatoon where I live has a dumb waiter, and the first time I went to that library, I was like, “A dumb waiter?!” And I was losing my mind, and they’re all like, “Yeah, we put the books in it to go to the basement.” I’m like, “You don’t understand. You don’t understand, it’s a dumb waiter.” So, the fact that she has a secret dumb waiter is everything to me. But also, that’s really smart, it’s so smart. Just, like, it’s giving Sweeney Todd’s machine to like…

Allison: The chair with the slide. 

Ann: Yeah, it’s that, but not non-murderous. Okay, so secret chimney, dumb waiter elevator. Yes, okay. 

Allison: She also literally has secret passages in the basement that go into the house next door. So, if the cops come, she could sneak down through the basement and up to the other house, leave through the back door. No one’s ever going to know she was there. 

Ann: This is, I can’t… I love this. Like, just everything about this. I didn’t realize until this moment how much I love secret passageways, but the fact that she had them, like, why would she ever move? This whole house is—

Allison: And you know, she had those built custom, that did not come with the dry goods store. She had to hire a construction crew of German-Jewish immigrants from the Lower East Side to build a secret passage into the next house. 

Ann: I feel like on her retainer, she has, like, you know, a magician or something where she’s just like, “What is the best way?” And he’s like, “Oh, I did this trick back in Germany where I was a peddler magician.” 

So, do you know the story or the book, The Devil in the White City about, like, H.H. Holmes and the Murder Palace? This is, like, the delightful reverse of that where he was building the hotel to secretly murder people, and she’s just building this like Uncle Scrooge level [laughs] although she’s now the Uncle Scrooge. I presume one of these buildings is full of coins for her to swim around in. [Allison laughs] Oh my gosh, this whole thing is literally a Bugs Bunny cartoon, and I’m living, this is amazing. 

Allison: I know, and I just, like, this, brief pause, you can imagine how the press handled this incredibly rich Jewish woman living in an immigrant neighbourhood, swimming in piles of coins. Like, this is an antisemitic stereotype, like, you can imagine the way that society responds to this is one of two ways. One, “Look at those Jews, look at what they’re doing.” And the other, “I love her, I would do anything for her.” So, there’s some of that going on. 

Ann: Yeah, yeah. This is incredible. Okay, okay. 

Allison: Just briefly, you said she had, like, magicians on retainer. She did not have magicians on retainer, but she did have a dozen German Jewish immigrant silversmiths who worked in her house taking initials and engravings out of pocket watches. 

Ann: So, did you see Ocean’s 8, like, the Ocean’s 11 but for ladies? Mindy Kaling’s character, she like, worked for a jewelry family and then she would take the jewels out of the settings and make them like turn the necklace into earrings and then you could sell the earrings. So, I picture, like, this is the sort of stuff they’re doing. 

Allison: It’s exactly that. Yeah, and that was the movie with the Jeanne de la Motte necklace in it, right? 

Ann: Yes. You know what? This is like, Jeanne de la Motte is the spiritual ancestor of all of this, I think. If she could have gotten to New York Citay… 

Allison: Oh, she would have loved it there. 

Ann: Oh man, this is incredible. This is great. But also, thank you for pointing out the way that some people would treat this, like, with the anti-Semitism that I presume was rampant in New York at the time. 

Allison: That will come into play later in the downside of the story. But right now, we’re still pretty much on top of the world. 

Ann: Yeah, yeah, okay. And she is, she’s the queen of New York. Oh, what’s that song from Newsies? 

Allison: “The King of New York.” [laughs] 

Ann: She’s the queen of New York. 

Allison: She sure is. 

Ann: I’m picturing, I don’t know. Somehow, I think there’s like, Newsies are involved in this or, like, just young boys on the street being like, “Extra, extra! Marm Mandelbaum!” [Allison laughs] Like, “She does it again!” I don’t know. 

Allison: You know who would work for Marm Mandelbaum? Spot Conlon. 

Ann: [gasps] I bet he did. That was his boss, Brooklyn. Okay. 

Allison: Okay, so last, sort of, aside anecdote before we get into an actual event in her life. And that’s, I want to talk briefly about the kind of parties that she was giving at her house. 

Ann: These, like, fancy parties for the fancy rich people. 

Allison: Yes, these fancy parties. Because they were mostly fancy parties, but Marm Mandelbaum was a woman of the world, and so she knew everybody. And so, the kind of people who were being invited to these fancy society parties, there’s, like, three groups of people who would show up. One of them is the fancy, rich ladies from uptown who wanted to see this rich lady in her cool house, and like, “We’ll allow her into our circle because she’s got money.” Part two is all of her friends who are thieves and burglars. And so, they’re sitting at the same dinner table with these fancy people. And part three is the cops because she’s inviting the cops to her parties. [laughs] 

When you were saying she’s probably bribing cops to look the other way; not only is she bribing cops, she’s inviting them to dinner, they’re hanging out next to her thieves. And sometimes she’s like, “Hey cop, you know the law really well. Do you want to help me steal something?” And the cops are like, “Yeah, absolutely. I will help you steal something.” 

Ann: Just everyone, this is… I’m sure there’s going to be inevitable drama coming up, but it’s just this like beautiful utopia of thieves, like, corrupt politicians, corrupt cops. She’s just fostered this environment where just kind of like, everyone just, they’re just all here for a good time, they’re all working together. It’s just, it’s beautiful. 

Allison: Yes, it’s lovely. And many people would be satisfied without that level of success in utopia, but not Marm. 

Ann: She’s never satisfied. Yeah, like in Hamilton, yes. 

Allison: Much like in Hamilton. Because in 1869, it becomes time for Marm to escalate her criminal empire into a section I have called “Rob That Bank: Part One.” 

Ann: Part one, okay. 

Allison: It’s time for bank robbery time, which is amazing. Another interesting thing I learned while researching this story is that bank robberies weren’t really a thing very much until about the Civil War era in America, and that’s because before this time, there wasn’t any paper money. Everyone had coins and, like, bags of gold. Do you know what’s really hard to escape from a heist with is a giant bag of gold? 

Ann: Fair, yeah, okay. 

Allison: But like, Civil War era, we just started using paper money 20 years ago. You can suddenly steal millions of dollars. 

Ann: Right, yeah, yeah. 

Allison: Yeah, so she’s got the idea. “I know all of these thieves. The Ocean National Bank is down the street. I’m going to put a heist team together and rob the Ocean National Bank.” 

Ann: Wait, it’s called the Ocean National Bank? 

Allison: Yes. 

Ann: So, this is like, Ocean’s 1. 

Allison: [laughs] It is Ocean’s 1! I didn’t even think about that. You’re so right. 

Ann: Yeah, this is like Steven Soderbergh, like, this is your prequel. 

Allison: It’s right here, and it’s a great heist story. So, I’m going to walk you through the Ocean National Bank heist because we know everything about it, and Marm is behind the whole thing. She decides who she wants to go in and lead the actual heist team because she’s not doing that. She’s a pillar of the community. She’s not going into the bank. 

Ann: She’s watching it all through a pinhole in the wall, just being like, “Yeah, that’s good, that’s good, yeah.” 

Allison: Exactly. So, she gets a man named George White to be in charge of the heist. And I wrote down this sentence about George White just because I really liked it. “George White was a Massachusetts hotel keeper who, in 1864, became accidentally embroiled in a bank heist and afterward deliberately embroiled himself in many more bank heists.” [both laugh] You know what? We love an entrepreneurial king. 

Ann: Yeah, it’s like you don’t know you have a talent for something until you do it once by accident, and then you do it on purpose. That’s what Dolly Parton says, I think. 

Allison: Exactly. He was the Dolly Parton of his age. [laughs] So, he gets some accomplices together, and they start to kind of case the joint. And so, what they do is White keeps making deposits in the bank. So, he’s getting his own account there with his own money, this is stolen money from other heists so, like, Marm is helping him do this. And meanwhile, every time he goes in, he starts like schmoozing with the bank president; he’s making good friends with this guy and asking him to dinner and taking him out for one-too-many drinks and asking him questions like, “What kind of safe do you use in your bank and can you describe the safe in more detail? Do you have a blueprint of the safe?” 

Ann: “And what is the combination?” Yeah, yeah. 

Allison: Exactly. And then White gets all of this information, and he also gets a corrupt bank teller on the inside to give him some help, and they take all of the blueprints and information back to Marm’s warehouse on the Lower East Side. 

Ann: Have you ever seen the movie… I mean, aside, but The Sting? 

Allison: No. 

Ann: You’ve never seen The Sting! Allison! 

Allison: I’ve never seen The Sting, sorry. 

Ann: It’s one of my favourite movies. It’s Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the ‘70s. Peak hotness for both men, [Allison laughs] and they’re playing con artists in, I forget if it’s, it might be Chicago or it might be New York Citay. Anyway, but they’re playing con artists in the 1920s, and the whole thing is just about them putting together a heist where they pretend to be running a racetrack gambling operation. And when they’re assembling the team of who’s going to do this, [laughs] it’s just like, “We need to get, you know, sneaky Dan Collins,” like, everyone has a name, it’s just like, “Fish Eyes McCoy.” Like, we need to get all these guys. 

And then the way that they let the guys know like there’s a new heist, it’s just like, you go to a place, the hotel where you know he is and the one guy just goes like, touches his nose with his finger, and then the other guy’s like touches his nose with his finger and that means they know it’s like, “Okay, we’re going to meet tonight at 7:00 PM at the headquarters,” like, that’s how they get the team together. And I’m just picturing that for Marm for this. 

Allison: I bet you that’s what it is. She’s got a little signal, she’s got something. But the incredible thing she does because she doesn’t do anything halfway, she prepares. She is a woman with a plan, and she is going to execute that plan. So, she has all of the bank robbers after they get all these blueprints from the bank, they come back to her warehouse, and they go in the basement and they build an exact replica of the bank vault in the basement of her house. 

Ann: To like, rehearse? 

Allison: Yes! And they rehearse for months. 

Ann: This is the greatest story I’ve ever heard. 

Allison: She’s so good. So, once they’ve run through the sample bank robbery, it comes time for the actual day of the bank heist. And once again, Marm, staying at home like the queen she is. But the dudes go to the bank. They have rented an office in the basement of the bank, which I guess was a thing you could do back then. The office they rent is directly beneath the bank vault that they want to rob. [laughs]

Ann: Do they Bugs Bunny drill a hole in the ceiling? 

Allison: Yes! They Bugs Bunny through the ceiling, Ann! [both laugh] They saw a hole in the ceiling of the office, climb up on a table, go through the ceiling, use their tools to break into the safe now that they’re in the safe room. There’s three safe doors, and they go through all of them, and then they steal in olden-day money, $768,000. They get into their getaway carriage, and they drive off into the night, and they get away with all of it. 

Ann: Because there’s not cars because it’s olden days. 

Allison: Because there’s not cars. And they took a weekend to do this because they went in on a Friday night after the bank had closed and then they went for two full days to work on the safe and work on all of the little deposit boxes inside of the safe to get as much as they could, and then they just walked out and left and had all the money. And Marm, who had set the whole thing up, do you want to know what percentage she gave the thieves and what percentage she kept for herself? 

Ann: Oh, just tell me because I’m sure it’ll be… 

Allison: She gave them 10%!

Ann: I was going to say 90-10. 

Allison: It was 90-10! [laughs]

Ann: But still 10% of 700,000 in old-timey money, like, that’s… 

Allison: Yeah. It was a good deal and, like, they wouldn’t have gotten in without her. Some of the stuff they got was bank loans, so she did have to fence some of it. 

Ann: Oh, like promissory notes and things. 

Allison: And there was money laundering involved, so she did her job. 90-10! And then Monday morning, of course, the bankers come in, and they’re like, “Great Scott! Someone sawed a hole in the floor of my bank vault!” 

Ann: They’re just like, “Oh my god, Bugs Bunny doesn’t exist yet. So, we were unprepared for this strategy.” 

Allison: Exactly. And the newspaper goes nuts because no one knows who did it, but everyone knows who did it. They just can’t pin it on her. The quote in the article that I had read that I loved so much was Boss Tweed himself, the most corrupt politician in all of history, said, “I couldn’t have done it better myself.” [laughs] which is so good! 

Ann: Incredible, incredible. What’s that— There’s a movie that’s, like, first of all, I just need to really reemphasize to you, you need to watch The Sting, I think you’ll really vibe with it. [Allison laughs] The suits that they wear in that are, Edith Head did the costumes, I think. The three-piece 1920s suits are amazing. But there’s that movie, I forget the name of it, but it’s like, Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and they have to, like, go through the lasers to like get to the safe or just, you know, the trope of like people, you have to dance and, like, slither. This is like that, but before lasers, this is just kind of like, all you had to do is, like, “Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.” [Allison laughs] And there you go, yeah. 

Allison: Perfect. 

Ann: Okay, that’s amazing. And she got away with it, clearly. 

Allison: She did, yeah, no problem. 

The next part of my notes is called “A series of anecdotes” because I knew I had to tell you, particularly, both of these stories, but I couldn’t find out where to put them. So, this is in the 1870s. One of them is a little anecdote I call “Marm Mandelbaum gets her fucking revenge,” which I love. So, you know, she had been training thieves all over the city, and one of the thieves that she used to work with was a woman known as “Black” Lena Kleinschmidt, which I love a criminal name, fantastic. They had been, like, besties because it was two German Jewish ladies doing crime. But then Lena signs up with a rival crime syndicate, and now she’s working with the enemy, might’ve been traveling Mike Grady or whatever. Marm decides, “No, no, no, no, no. No one betrays me. No one does this.” 

So, she sends one of her student pickpockets to the high society event that Lena is hosting at her beautiful house and has this pickpocket steal an emerald ring from one of the guests at the party. This pickpocket then takes it back to Marm, and Marm sends this ring to Lena with a little note that says, “A gift from your best friend, Marm Mandelbaum. I hope you wear this wherever you go.” And Lena says, “Oh, that’s so nice. Thanks! We must be good,” and puts the ring on, and then she wears it to her next society party where the person she stole it from is attending. And the guy who got his ring stolen is like, “Bitch, that’s my ring. What do you mean?” And hires a private detective to catch Lena, who gets sent to prison for stealing the ring. 

Ann: Oh! It’s beautiful. And that is Affair of the Necklace level. 

Allison: Yes! 

Ann: Sending a note, even. Like, this is very… Oh, beautiful, beautiful. Yeah. 

Allison: You just imagine Marm sitting at home being like, “And that’s what you get for messing with me, the baddest bitch in New York City.” 

The second story, and this is my personal favourite, is everyone knew about Marm; she was infamous at this point. And so, somebody wrote a play that was supposed to be based on her life. It was called The Two Orphans, and it’s an absolute classic Charles Dickens knockoff about this sad girl who ends up on the streets and gets taken into this criminal syndicate run by a hideous, old, tall Jewish crime boss who was referred to as La Frochard because it was set in France. I don’t know what that means, but that was her crime name. And so, everyone knew, okay, that character is a caricature of Marm Mandelbaum, it was, like, the old evil witch character. 

And so, Marm says, “You know what? I want to go see this play.” And so, she gets decked up in her silk and her $40,000 worth of diamonds, and she goes, she gets a private box just for herself. And she makes sure everybody watches as she goes into her box and watches this play. And after the play, she goes up to the owner of the theatre and gestures at her incredible outfit and then says, “Look at me. I am Madame Mandelbaum. Does that hussy look anything like me?” [Ann laughs] [sighs] May we all be that cool someday. 

Ann: Augh! Amazing, amazing. I’m going to guess, I don’t know if this is in the story, but she somehow figured out that you get 90% of the proceeds from the ticket sales of the play. 

Allison: [laughs] She probably did. 

Okay, so we’re in the mid-1870s at this point. Wolfe Mandelbaum, remember him? Her husband? 

Ann: Oh, husband, yeah, yeah. 

Allison: He dies in 1875, and she never marries again. So, I have no idea what was going on in that marriage. He’s literally almost never mentioned, but. 

Ann: And she’s like… I think in this time and place, being a married woman would have been important just societally, for people to accept her in a certain way. And then being a widow, I think is also— So, I think he served his role of just sort of allowing her to become Mrs. Mandelbaum. Much like Madame Tussaud’s husband just kind of existed to make her Madame Tussaud. 

Allison: Yeah, that seems to have been his role. 

Ann: Thanks, Wolfe. You clearly didn’t get in her way. And I mean, why would he? Like, he would have… 

Allison: This is going great for him. 

Ann: Yeah, and if you cross her, you know what happens. He knows what would happen. 

Aee: I like to imagine that he was just delighted that she was happy, and he was a real wife guy. That’s what I imagine Wolfe Mandelbaum to be. I have no proof, but I imagine him being like, “Hey, that’s my wife. Isn’t she amazing?” 

Ann: “How was your day, honey?”

Allison: “I committed so many crimes.” 

Ann: And he’ll be like, “That’s nice. I got this fish half-price today.” 

Allison: [laughs] Exactly what I’m picturing! 

Ann: “I made you supper.” 

Allison: “Thanks.” Yeah, you know she wasn’t cooking, she had business to do. 

Okay, so 1878. Marm, now a widow, is like, “Remember that time I robbed a bank? That went really well. I think I’m going to rob another bank.” So, this brings us to the section of my notes called “Rob That Bank: Part Two.” This time, she’s going for the big bank. This is the Manhattan Savings Institution, which is now HSBC Bank. So, real big. And for this, she calls in a new team of people because it’s been about 10 years since the last bank robbery. And the leader of this new heist is a guy named George Leonidas Leslie and he’s a fuckboy. 

Ann: Wait, his last name is Leslie? 

Allison: It is. 

Ann: That is one of the names in my ancestry. So, I’m just going to picture this as a relative of mine. 

Allison: [laughs] For better or for worse, he might be. 

Ann: A shitty dirtbag. So, just picture like an old-timey red-haired guy with a mustache. Yeah. 

Allison: Perfect. He was apparently really hot, and everyone was in love with him. So, there’s that. 

Ann: That’s my ancestor, yeah. 

Allison: The other thing he used to do, he was so good at robberies and break-ins and stuff that eventually he put out, like, his little shingle as a “consulting burglar.” So, incredible. So, when people were setting up a heist in like Omaha, Nebraska, they’d be like, “I need to bring in a consultant.” And so, they would bring in Leslie, and he would help them come up with a plan, and they would pay him like 20% of whatever they get out of the bank heist he helped them set up, and then he would head out. 

Ann: I don’t see anything wrong with this guy at this point. Okay, yeah. 

Allison: Absolutely not. When I say he was a fuckboy, I mean, he couldn’t stop sleeping with other people’s wives. So, that’s going on. 

Ann: Respect. 

Allison: Keep that in mind. 

Ann: He’s hot. He’s got a plan. I’m on his side thus far. Okay. 

Allison: There are two other people involved in this group. There’s more than that, but there’s two with names I wanted to tell you. One of them is John Nugent, who’s better known as police officer John Nugent, in charge of the 18th precinct of Manhattan. [laughs] So, that helps.

Ann: Okay. Yeah. 

Allison: It’s a long nickname, but yeah. Yeah. The second one, I don’t know anything about him except that his name is Banjo Pete Emerson, [Ann claps] which you needed to know. 

Ann: Banjo Pete. That’s all you need to know. Yeah. 

Allison: That’s all you got. So, on the day of the robbery, Banjo Pete and the police officer and their people show up at the bank. They hold the bank teller at gunpoint. This is not a very sophisticated heist, but what they do have is they have Banjo Pete dress up in the bank teller’s clothes and stand in the front window so that no one knows that robbery is happening in the back of the bank. 

Ann: That’s clever. But also, I imagine he’s also playing the banjo. [laughs]

Allison: [laughs] Yes, the whole time. 

Ann: That was his one… He’s like, “I will do this, but I have to be playing the banjo.” [laughs] 

Allison: “It’s on my rider. Please don’t worry about it.” 

Ann: “I need to play the soundtrack.” [laughs]

Allison: [laughs] So, the cop and everybody else breaks into the bank vault. They make off with multiple millions of dollars. This is a giant heist. This is the biggest robbery of her career. It’s not quite as cartoony as the first one, but this is where the money comes from. 

The one hiccup in the plan is that consulting burglar George Leslie never showed up to the heist, never showed up. And Marm was heartbroken because she thought he was hot and cool and a great consulting burglar. And so, she’s like, “What happened to him? Is he okay?” [Ann gasps] So, after the heist, she starts looking around for him in the city, and they find him shot three times in the back of the head outside of the house of the husband of his mistress. So, he got caught and he couldn’t do the robbery. RIP. 

Ann: All right. Okay, I thought he was… I was worried that my ancestor was going to turn on her or something. But no, he would have been there except he couldn’t stop his fuckboy ways. 

Allison: He couldn’t, he couldn’t. She was so sad. She’s like, he was, the quote from the book was, “He was such a nice man,” which is what my Jewish grandmother would always say. So, that just made me feel seen. [laughs]

Ann: RIP to my hot ancestor. 

Allison: Hot ancestor, George Leslie. [laughs]

Ann: [laughs] Consulting burglar, George Leslie. 

Allison: Okay, so that is, what was that? 1878? 

Ann: And they got away with it again? 

Allison: They got away with it. Yeah. Big success. Unfortunately, that’s the last big success in this story because now we’re getting into the slow decline of Marm Mandelbaum. 

Ann: Well, and you know, no one’s story just goes up and up and up and up and up. Like, every… Naturally, there has to be a peak and a valley.

Allison: However, she’s not done being a badass yet, so never fear. She’s down, but she’s never out. So, at this point, she’s been crime boss of New York City for, I think it’s, like, 30 years, she’s a household name. And of course, eventually, she’s going to trust a thief who can’t be trusted, and she’s going to get the wrong guy on her team. This happens to her in the late 1870s. It’s a guy named Michael Kurtz. His nickname is Sheeny Mike, you should never trust a man whose nickname is a racial slur for Jews. That’s my motto here. 

Ann: I was going to ask, what does that mean? I’ve not heard that word before. 

Allison: No, that’s… So, I’m going to call him Mike because that seems better. But he’s one of her thieves on the payroll, and he runs a jewelry store in Boston in 1877, and he gets caught. So, he gets arrested, he gets brought back on the train to New York to be tried, and Marm tries to bail him out of jail like she usually does, but it doesn’t work out. And she’s like, “Okay, I have to cut my losses with this guy, send him to jail. Sorry, Mike, I did my best.” And he spends four years in prison. He would have spent a lot more time in prison, interestingly, but he got let out on medical release because he kept eating soap, and they’re like, “Well, he keeps throwing up, and he’s going to die if he keeps eating soap. So, I guess we’ll let him go.” 

Ann: I like this era [Allison laughs] because people could really come up with plans that no one else saw coming and were so confusing that they worked. 

Allison: Right. Like, whose plan was that? But I can’t knock that plan because that plan worked. 

Ann: That plan worked. Yeah, so he just… You know, could that work today? A lot of people, I don’t know. I don’t know if in prison you have bar soap anymore, but if you drink liquid soap or hand sanitizer… 

Allison: I mean, you’re going to die. 

Ann: You know what? The people listening to this podcast from prisons, something to consider. 

Allison: Yeah, worked for him. So, he gets let out in 1881, I think. 

Ann: Wait! Okay, I don’t know where this story is going, but so far, I’m like, 10 out of 10 for guessing the next thing. 

Allison: Yes. 

Ann: So, was he in prison like Sideshow Bob in The Simpsons just being like, [deep angry voice] “I hate you, Marm,” and just, like, obsessing about wanting revenge on her? 

Allison: [laughs] Yes! Yes, he was. 

Ann: Yeah? Yeah, okay.

Allison: Of course he was. 

Ann: So, literally Sideshow Bob. 

Allison: The absolute second he gets out of prison, he’s like, “Hey, police, you know that Marm Mandelbaum bitch? She’s been fencing stolen goods for 30 years.” And the cops then come in and arrest her for being his fence. 

Ann: Because she’s too tall to escape in the dumbwaiter. 

Allison: Yes. And I think she’s also like, “Also, I know all of these cops, and I know all of the judges. So, fucking take me in, whatever. I don’t care.” 

Ann: Yeah, fair. 

Allison: Because everybody knew. Yeah, of course, she’s a fence. Literally, this is not news to anybody, but it’s very hard to prove that someone’s a fence because you’re not catching them in the act of stealing anything. 

Ann: And no one’s going to testify against her, I would think. 

Allison: Right. And the way the law was back then, it wasn’t enough to catch someone fencing stolen goods. You had to prove that they knew that they were stolen. Because if you did it by accident, that wasn’t a crime. 

So, what she does is, well, first, she gets her two circus ringmaster lawyers on the case and this six-foot-tall man in his purple velvet suit delays the trial for two years on bullshit. He’s just like, “She can’t come to court today, it’s raining too much.” And like, this worked until 1883. They just put the fuck off. But eventually… 

Ann: You still see that strategy literally today in various high-profile trials. Just like, delay, delay, delay. Yeah. 

Allison: Yep. Eventually, in 1883, it went to trial, and Marm Mandelbaum got up on the stand in her silk and her diamonds and said, “I had no idea that nice young man was a thief. This is news to me.” And that didn’t work because… 

Ann: No! Really? 

Allison: Of course it didn’t. But she didn’t go to jail. She was fined, like, a couple thousand dollars and whatever, she was rich. 

Ann: To her, that’s like, yeah, it’s like the equivalent of a cup of coffee. 

Allison: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the point of it is, this is the first time she’s ever been convicted on anything. This is the first time the system hasn’t bailed her out. So, this is a sign that, okay, maybe you can’t run the city the way that you used to. Maybe the law is catching up. 

Ann: So, why do you think that is? Was the city getting a bit less Wild West, criminals-run-everything-y? Or was this like, “Oh, she’s Jewish, and we don’t like that anymore”? 

Allison: Well, I’m going to tell you why because I don’t think it’s that. I don’t think that helped her, but I think what happened was, in 1883, a brand-new district attorney comes to New York City. His name is Peter B. Olney. 

Ann: Theodore Roosevelt! 

Allison: No, sorry. [both laugh] He’s just a man named Peter. 

Ann: Aww, okay. 

Allison: However, this is the first DA that New York has had in 75 years who was interested in stopping crime instead of doing crime. [laughs]

Ann: This guy sucks. 

Allison: I know! Augh.

Ann: If there was a movie of this, pessimistically, he would be the hero of the movie. You know? 

Allison: I know. 

Ann: Like, they would bring, and he’s like, “I’m going to bring the law and order it to here,” and it’s just like, “You’re ruining everything, Peter.” 

Allison: “You’re ruining the cool movie we were watching, Peter.” It’s no good. 

Ann: Yeah. Okay, so he comes in, and he’s, like, actually doing law. Okay. Or he just comes in and is like, “What is this clown car?” 

Allison: “What the fuck is happening here?” I don’t know if this was the same time as, like, the Comstock Act, which was, I think it was similar time, which is like, “We have to clean up the vice in New York City,” which like, to be fair, there’s a lot of vice in New York City right now. Like, literally everything is crime. So, like, fair point to them, this was probably a good idea, but I’m on Marm’s side because, of course I am. 

Ann: So, in terms of all of this, I’m just like, right. Okay, I’m siding so hard with the criminal element, [Allison laughs] but I feel like was Marm, she was stealing from the already rich, right? 

Allison: Mostly. She was stealing nice-ass things.

Ann: Yeah. She was stealing stuff from— Kind of like, Cassie Chadwick, her victims were not like, her victims were not people I am particularly sympathetic towards, shall we say. 

Allison: Right. And also, she’s not out there whacking people. I don’t think she ever kills anybody. 

Ann: Yeah. Like, there’s other people, they’re like Gangs of New York, the movie, you know, a lot of shitty stuff those gangs are doing. But I feel like she’s, I don’t know, I support women’s… [laughs] 

Allison: Rights and wrongs. 

Ann: Rights and wrongs. And in this instance, I think we’re seeing, you know, a woman who is just, like… There’s a similar gang that we haven’t talked about on the podcast before, but I know you know about them, the Forty Elephants in England at this same time. And they were also just kind of like, “Here’s what we’re doing. Stealing jewels from the rich, pickpocketing from the wealthy.” It’s just like, “We’re not killing anyone. We’re just getting nice things so we can look glamorous.” I see nothing wrong with this. 

Allison: No, absolutely not. 

Ann: And that’s my point of view on this podcast. Don’t do crimes, everybody, but oldey-timey crimes… Respect. 

Allison: Yes, absolutely. Peter B. Olney, DA of New York City, does not agree with you. 

Ann: Okay, Peter needs to get his priorities. It’s like, yeah, go after the vice that’s, like, you know, people being assaulted, people burning… The volunteer fire brigade burning down the houses, go after them. [Allison laughs] Marm is just, like, an entrepreneurial mom who’s just a lady with a dream who likes to throw a dinner party. Like, I don’t know, I don’t know. I feel like Peter, he had bigger things to worry about.

Allison: I would think so. 

Ann: But I guess that guy, the guy from the jail, the Sideshow Bob guy, I guess he really presented this on a platter, like, “Hey, here’s this criminal and I’m willing to testify against her,” yeah. Okay, okay. So, Peter sucks. 

Allison: Peter sucks. 

Ann: New York is, you know how people say, like, “Oh, New York used to be great and then they like cleaned it up and now it’s this like tourist city.” I’m like, “Yeah! I see what you mean now, yeah.” 

Allison: [laughs] So, what Olney does, he wants to catch Marm in the act of fencing, because like I said, you have to be proven that you knew you were fencing stolen goods. 

Ann: That you’re doing it. Is he sort of like a Javert-type character? 

Allison: Yes! But almost, because I’m about to introduce you to the Javert of this story, which is the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Are you familiar with the Pinkertons? 

Ann: [gasps] Tell everybody. 

Allison: Okay, I don’t know everything about the Pinkertons, but this is, like, the first private detective agency in the U.S., and they’re sort of like who the cops would call in when you need to go undercover on, like, a sting operation. 

Ann: Yeah, they’re sort of like Marm’s operation, but like, nerds and not cool. 

Allison: They’re like, Sherlock Holmes meets, like, a spy meets, like, a tax auditor, I think. 

Ann: They’re sort of like, if this is a TV show, it would be sort of like CSI olden days. Like, it’s just sort of like a crack team of people trying to solve things. But again, in this instance, I’m on the side of the criminals, so I think they’re nerds. I think— 

Allison: They were also Union Busters, fuck the Pinkertons. [laughs]

Ann: Yeah, and I think they still are. They had something to do with, I think, at some point when—this was on Drunk History—Abraham Lincoln, I think they were like his personal bodyguards at one point or something. And there’s, like, a book out that’s about, like, the first Lady Pinkerton. And it’s like, she was the first like women private investigator or something. Anyway, so they come in, yes, and they’re just like, “We’re nerds, and we’re here to stop crime because we don’t want New York to be cool anymore.” 

Allison: Exactly. So, one of the Pinkerton spies goes undercover as one of Marm’s thieves. So, he like, gets into her inner circle. 

Ann: Okay, that’s cool.

Allison: It is kind of cool. He uses the pseudonym Stein, which, like, try harder, is all I’m saying. 

Ann: “Look at me, I’m Jewish!” 

Allison: “Hello, it’s fine. I’m Mr. Cohen.” 

Ann: “How about that Hanukkah?” 

Allison: Exactly what it feels like. [laughs] 

Ann: “I brought my dreidel! I’m Mr. Stein.” Yeah.

Allison: So, it takes him, like, six months, which, hats off to Marm for, for six months having a Pinkerton working in her thieving factory, and he can’t prove anything. 

Ann: Yeah, good, good. 

Allison: But finally, he works with, like, a silk vendor. So, they hide something super secret in the silk. Like, they stitch some initials in there so that they can identify this particular one as being stolen. I don’t know all of the ins and outs of how you trace stolen silk, but all I know is that Marm didn’t sufficiently criminally launder this particular bolt of silk, and so it was enough for the cops to pin her as selling it on purpose. 

Ann: I keep just thinking of this in terms of every movie I’ve ever heard of, but there’s that movie The Departed where it’s, like, a guy who was undercover with a gang, but then he kind of starts to side with the gang. This would be also a good story as well. 

Allison: I love that movie!

Ann: Like, I think the movie that we need is the Bugs Bunny Ocean’s 1. [Allison laughs] But I think that this could be a compelling story as well, because I think to get a movie made these days, you need, like, a Copaganda angle and I think you need like a white man as your hero. So, I think this might be the way in. Yeah, anyway, okay. So, he’s not won over by her gang. 

Allison: No. 

Ann: And instead is a nerd and rats her out. 

Allison: Here’s the thing though. When the cops come to the dry goods store to arrest Marm Mandelbaum in 1884, the Pinkerton agent comes with to be like, “Ha-ha, I got you.” And Marm, bless her fucking heart, punches the Pinkerton spy in the face. 

Ann: Yes! [Allison laughs] Yes. I thought she was going to say, “Oh, I thought he was a nice boy.” No. Better! 

Allison: No, she said, “Fuck you,” and she punched him in the face. [laughs] 

Ann: I hope she had a handful of rings on. 

Allison: Of course she did. She had diamonds everywhere, and she’s six-foot-two. That hurt. [laughs]

Ann: Yeah, good. And you know, the way that she took people in, I don’t know at this point, like, how much she did this anymore, but like, you described as sort of this family, like in Fast and Furious, and these people, she saw them as, like, her children. So, it’s like betrayal from her child. 

Allison: Yeah. It’s exactly like that. 

Ann: Punching him in the face is the correct response in this instance at condone violence, obviously. 

Allison: [laughs] Yes. So, she gets taken to jail to await her hearing to see if the case would go to trial. And this is where the papers go fucking nuts. Like, this is where they’re like, “We have a rich Jewish lady who did a crime,” and all of the political cartoons from this era are, like, the worst thing that… You can imagine what they are. 

Ann: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Allison: But Marm, bless her, pretends so hard. They interview her. They’re like, “Have you ever done a crime, Marm Mandelbaum, crime boss?” And she says, “I have never, never stolen anything in my life,” Which, okay, might be true. 

Ann: Might be true. “Have I acquired stolen goods, laundered them? Did I hire people to rob things? Yes. Did I ever? No.” So she’s being… Yeah, yeah. No, factually true. 

Allison: Factually true. She goes to her hearing dressed to the nines. Her lawyer comes dressed to the nines and motions for the charges to be dismissed so many times that the judge says, “You’re making too many motions, Sir.” [laughs]

Ann: [laughs] I thought the judge was going to be like, “You know what? I give in.” 

Allison: No, he’s like, “Please shut up, you weird man. What’s happening?” [laughs] But Marm’s defense, basically, like, she says it in a cool, plausible deniability way, but she says, “Listen, do you actually want me on the stand talking? Because if I go—” 

Ann: Oh! She’s friends with all the cops. 

Allison: “You have no idea who I could bring down with me. I could bring down the entire police office and all of the politicians in New York. If you want me to testify, I can testify.” And that doesn’t work, which is their mistake. So, bail gets set for her at $10,000, and her trial date is set. I want to say that again: bail was set at $10,000 in oldey-timey money. Bail for a murderer at this time was $500. 

Ann: Wow. Okay. Again, she can afford this, but like, that’s wild. 

Allison: And she paid it. She’s like, ”Yeah, sure, I have $10,000. I don’t fucking care. I’m going home.” And on the day of her trial, the entire city comes to the courthouse. It’s a press circus and they’re waiting for the trial to start, and they’re waiting for the trial to start, and they’re waiting… And then the foreman comes out and is like, “I’m so sorry, Your Honor. We can’t find her.” 

Ann: No, you can’t! 

Allison: You can’t find her. Where was she? Great fucking question. Let’s go back to the night before. 

Ann: Okay. Okay. Okay. 

Allison: Because she went into a carriage to visit with her lawyers, circus criminal lawyers, the night before the trial, a totally normal thing, everyone would do that. The Pinkertons follow her because fuck the Pinkertons, and they see her walk into the lawyer’s office and then three hours later, they see her leave and get back in the carriage and go home. 

Ann: [hushed tone] But that was somebody else dressed like…!

Allison: Or do they?! Because they saw a six-foot-two somebody else dressed like Marm leave. Was it her six-foot-tall lawyer wearing the velvet suits? Maybe. We’re not sure. I think so! 

Ann: So, this is like, again, like she’s got a winning strategy. Like, with that one bank where they got Banjo Pete, Banjo Mike, where they got him to dress like the bank teller and stand on the window. She’s just like, “People don’t pay it, just wear the clothes.” 

Allison: Yeah, it’s fine. So, her lawyer goes out as the decoy into the street, and Marm sneaks out the back with her son, and they have their suitcases ready, and they get on a train and run away to Canada. 

Ann: [gasps] To Canada! 

Allison: To Toronto. 

Ann: No! 

Allison: They’ve got suitcases full of jewels, and they show up in the city of Toronto, and everybody in the city of Toronto is like, “Hey, isn’t that woman with the suitcase full of jewels the world’s most famous criminal fence?” 

Ann: Yeah, I do want to say that Toronto and New York City… Not that far apart. They would have gotten the news. 

Allison: To her credit, she immediately leaves Toronto and goes to Hamilton, Ontario. 

Ann: Hamilton, Ontario. Shout out to Hamilton, Ontario. I know people there, and I bet you never thought we’d say the name of your city on this show, and here we are.

Allison: [laughs] And here we are! So, they are immediately arrested upon arrival in Hamilton, Ontario. However, once again, Marm is too smart for them because she can only get arrested if they know that she has a suitcase full of stolen goods, but she’s taken all the marks off the jewels already. So, it looks like she’s just traveling with a suitcase full of diamonds, and they can’t pin anything on her. They don’t know that those are stolen; they can’t prove it. And at this point in history, there are no extradition laws between Canada and the US. So, the cops in New York, that asshole DA sends a message to the city police of Hamilton, Ontario and says, “Hey, I know it’s not legally required but could you please extradite Marm Mandelbaum to the court? We’re currently waiting for her. Her trial is assembled.” And the police of Hamilton, Ontario ghost him. They never respond. 

Ann: You know why? Because they get it. They know that they’re like, “This is great for us, for tourism, to have this person in our city.” Like, well, and I’m sure she’s like, “Hey, if I give you these diamonds, would you not extradite me?” And they’re like, “Cool.” 

Allison: “Cool, suitcase full of diamonds.” 

Ann: And she’s like, “I’m having a dinner party.” 

Allison: Yeah, fantastic. 

Ann: So, she’s in fucking Hamilton, Ontario. [laughs] 

Allison: Yes. And she can’t go back to New York because the second she sets foot in New York, she’s going to get arrested. And so, she’s there with her son, and she’s like, “You know what? We can work with this. We’ve been in worse places than this.” And she sets up a brand-new store on Main Street in Hamilton, Ontario. 

Ann: A dry goods store? 

Allison: It’s a ladies’ underwear store. [Ann laughs] But she uses it the same way she used the dry goods store. So, she’s like, “Hey, if anyone happens to have anything they want to get rid of in Hamilton, Ontario, stop by my underwear store, and I could probably take care of that for you.” And it works! 

Ann: Like, the thing with New York City, huge city, port city, people are coming and going all the time. Hamilton, I don’t know much about, but clearly, she saw an opportunity and it was able to… I don’t know. I was just looking to see where Cassie Chadwick was from because she also spent time in Ontario. I’m like, could these two…? Could we do another movie idea be a Thelma & Louise situation of the two of them teaming up somehow? 

Allison: Oh my god, this would be the mother-daughter dream team. 

Ann: Yeah, yeah, if the two of them… I’m just— Anyway, I know that she was somewhere in Canada. I was wondering if they might’ve seen each other. Okay, so Hamilton, Ontario, underwear store. It’s all just starting again. It’s just like Marm Mandelbaum 2.0. 

Allison: Yeah, she’s like, “All good.” She’s in her sixties at this point, and there’s less crime in Hamilton, Ontario because there’s less people and also less diamonds. So, this is not as successful, but like…

Ann: No, and I’m thinking that the banks wouldn’t have as much money. Yeah, like, she’s downgrading her lifestyle considerably. 

Allison: Yeah, and she’s pissed. Like, to her dying day, she’s like, “I fucking wish I was in New York City right now. Those were the best days of my life, and I hate it here.” Sorry to Canada, I’m sure it was lovely. 

Ann: No, this is fine. I was just double-checking something else as well. So, we mentioned this in the Cassie Chadwick episode, but there is an incredibly long-running Canadian show called Murdoch Mysteries, which is about a man in oldey-time Toronto who solves murders. Pinkertons have been involved, I’m sure. Margaret Atwood has had a cameo role on it, former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been on it. It’s an institution in this country, and I’ve never actually watched it. [Allison laughs] Anyway, they had a Cassie Chadwick episode, I guess, and I was like, “Well, they have to…” These writers, it’s like the Grey’s Anatomy writers or Law & Order. It’s just like, they must be frantic for new plotlines after this many seasons of, like, a 22-episode season. I’m like, they must’ve done Marm Mandelbaum; she was in Hamilton, she’s in Toronto. They could have, and they haven’t yet. If any of the writers of Murdoch Mysteries are listening to this… 

Allison: It’s right here, it’s so good. 

Ann: It’s on a platter for you right here. You could do a several season, like, episode arc, Marm Mandelbaum could come in, she could help solve some cases. She could be sort of like an Irene Adler figure, you know, like with Murdoch. You know, who’s on that now? The dad from Kim’s Convenience, he’s on there now as, like, a Chinese detective in olden days, Toronto. Anyway, shout-out to Murdoch Mysteries. I’m honestly astonished, but maybe, like, this book just came out 2024. So, they’re probably currently filming a Marm Mandelbaum episode because they just found out about her. Or maybe they’re finding out about her right now from this podcast. Again, shout-out to Murdoch Mysteries. I would love to make a cameo appearance on your show. 

Okay, so she’s in Hamilton. She’s just like, “I’m not in jail, but is this any better? Hamilton, Ontario?” 

Allison: And she has room for one last caper. 

Ann: Please, okay. 

Allison: It’s a sad one, but it’s also badass, so I love it. It’s the early 1890s, and remember, Marm had four kids. One of them married a New York politician and died in childbirth in the early 1890s in New York. 

Ann: Boo! 

Allison: So, Marm is in Hamilton. 

Ann: Boo to dying in childbirth. It ripped away so many cool people. 

Allison: But Marm was the best mom, and she’s like, “I haven’t been able to see my kid in years because I can’t leave Canada…”

Ann: Because as soon as she gets to New York, she’s going to be put on trial. 

Allison: Yeah, yeah. But the funeral’s in New York City. And she’s like, “Well, I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to miss my daughter’s funeral.” 

Ann: Yeah, good mom. Okay. 

Allison: She sneaks back into New York City in disguise. 

Ann: I was going to say in disguise! 

Allison: She hides in the secret passages of her old dry goods store, and she only comes up for the body viewing in the shiva in the house. She doesn’t go to the graveyard because that’s where the cops are. But she’s like, “I need time with my daughter. We had our own little private morning.” And then she gets back on the train and sneaks away to Canada, and she’s great. 

Ann: Do you know what her disguise was? Was it a mustache? 

Allison: I have to believe it was a fake beard and a hat, but I do not know. 

Ann: Because I think with her height, the best course of action is to disguise herself as a man. 

Allison: Agreed. I think she could have done that. 

Ann: Yeah, I think a six-foot-tall woman would be noticed. 

Allison: Yes, probably. 

Ann: At the shiva for the daughter of a six-foot-tall woman who’s currently an on-the-run criminal. You know, those passageways come in so handy. 

Allison: Really useful. 

Ann: I love it. And so, she got in and out. I love that. I love that for her, yeah. 

Allison: So, she goes back to Canada. She’s in her late sixties. The newspapers all over America falsely report her death in, like, 1893, and she has to write a retraction to the newspaper and be like, “JK, I’m actually not dead. I’m still here. I’m just in Canada.” 

Ann: Iconic, love it. Yeah. 

Allison: But she does pass away in 1894 of kidney disease, natural causes, age 68, which for oldie days, pretty good. 

Ann: For oldey days, for someone living the life she was living where, like, my ancestor was just shot, you know, like she’s… Anyway. 

Allison: Your ancestor, George Leslie, the consulting burglar. [laughs] 

Ann: Yeah, you know, like, people are just, in this criminal world of New York Citay, oldey-times, like, living the life she was living was a dangerous life of criminal. Like, another gang boss could have killed her or whatever, but she didn’t. So, 68 kidney disease, still too young, but honestly, she lived a life. 

Allison: And I have one last anecdote for the road about her funeral because… 

Ann: Oh, I’m curious where she was buried. 

Allison: She was buried, I believe, in New York. I could be wrong but…

Ann: In New York, okay. Dead, but she didn’t go back to New York until she’s dead. Okay. 

Allison: Right, but I do— 

Ann: I don’t think she would want to be buried in Hamilton, Ontario. 

Allison: No, I think that’s why I’m thinking, “Fuck this. No, I want to be back in my cool city with my daughter.” 

Ann: All love to Hamilton, Ontario. I know people who live there, but like, come on, she doesn’t… You know, Marm didn’t want to be there. 

Allison: But because she was such a badass, people were like, “She can’t have died of kidney disease at age 68. That’s not what would happen to Marm. I bet you she faked her death and she’s on the run and now she’s living in New York City.” So, there were rumours that she filled her coffin with rocks and then went off and lived for another 40 years. Some people think that she showed up at her own funeral where they buried the coffin full of rocks and picked the pockets of the people at her funeral, which I know isn’t true, but would like to believe is true. It’s spiritually true. 

Ann: It’s spiritually true. And if she wasn’t there in person, then I think she was there in ghost form, picking pockets as a ghost. 

Allison: Yes, absolutely. Just like, “He-he, I take this with me to the afterlife.” 

Ann: Yeah, yeah. The coffin not full of rocks, full of diamonds. 

Allison: Full of diamonds. [laughs] Full of 50,000 cigars. 

Ann: Full of goats. Yeah. And that is the saga. Is that the…?

Allison: That is the saga of Fredericka Marm Mendelbaum. 

Ann: This is… It has so many things I know you love and that really makes me happy. Like disguises, bank robberies, heists, just like, the lawyers. [laughs]

Allison: [laughs] The lawyers are so good. 

Ann: The lawyers are very Allison Epstein coded, I have to say. 

Allison: I would have written them if they weren’t real. Yeah. 

Ann: And the fact that he actually was the lawyer for actual PT Barnum, like, of course he was. 

Allison: Perfect. 

Ann: So, we’re going to score her. 

Allison: I’ve been thinking about this ahead of time, trying to do the score in my head to see if she’s going to get a 23 and end an Allison Epstein Corner. 

Ann: I think… Ooh, here’s the thing. 

Allison: It’s hard to say. 

Ann: There are some things she’s going to score highly in, and there’s one thing she’s going to score lowly in. So, we’ll see how the numbers turn out. 

The first one, I’m going to go out of order because I think some of these are a given. Schemieness… is a 10. [laughs]

Allison: [laughs] If this girl doesn’t get a 10, what are we doing here? 

Ann: What even…? Like, honestly. Everything, everything about her story. Like, just going from being like a peddler in not-Germany to, like, the way that she kept leveling up her business when she didn’t need to. She could have happily just retired effectively on the money she was making, but she was just, like, couldn’t stop scheming.

Allison: Her whole job was schemes. She wasn’t even executing the schemes. They just called her to come up with schemes. 

Ann: She was sort of a consulting schemer and just, like, the layout of her apartment. 10 out of 10 for the dumb waiter!

Allison: The sneaking out of the lawyer’s house to get on a train, A+ scheme. 

Ann: Oh my gosh. And it’s, they were great schemes and they were, like, in this time… Like, if she was today, her schemes would be more sophisticated. But back then, no one was expecting these schemes, you could just Bugs Bunny cut a hole in a bank. 

Allison: Yeah, why would you be more complicated when a Bugs Bunny through the bank works? 

Ann: Yeah, or just, like, sending out your lawyer dressed in your dress. Like, that’s all you need to do. Like, basic schemes, but effective, and she knew she didn’t have to complicate things. 10 out of 10 for schemes. My god. 

Scandaliciousness. I’m curious what your thoughts are about this because I love it. But in the context of pre-Pete New York Citay, she was just kind of, everyone was kind of like… She didn’t stand out, or did she? 

Allison: She did stand out. She was famous for being so good at what she did. She was a public figure to the extent that they were writing plays about her, and then she would attend them and watch them. 

Ann: Fair. True.

Allison: I will say I’m not going to give her a 10 for Scandaliciousness because she was, like, the good mom neighborhood watch captain who went to temple every Friday and like… 

Ann: And like, she was married. Like, there’s not sex scandals. 

Allison: There is no sex scandal. There is no…

Ann: My ancestor, Mr. Leslie, [Allison laughs] would score highly in Scandaliciousness. But she, I think, in the time and the place, like she was at a certain, like this is at least a 5. Just everyone living in New York Citay at that time is at a 5 of Scandaliciousness because the city was that. But you’re right, like, she was a good Jewish mom. Like, so I don’t know, where would you put her? 

Allison: I’m thinking a 6 or 7. 

Ann: Okay, I’m going to go 7 because…

Allison: She deserves it. 

Ann: We’re going to round up because I’m sure she always rounded up when she was adding things. 

Allison: [laughs] Yes, she did. 

Ann: Except for payment for her workers. So, Significance. 

Allison: Mmm, this is the one I wasn’t sure about. 

Ann: Yeah, in the book, The Talented…? The Marvelous Mrs. Mandelbaum. 

Allison: Which is not the name of the book. [laughs]

Ann: Does the author explain how she heard about her because she was so famous in her time, but there hasn’t been a book about her. She’s not been on Murdoch Mysteries. Like, how famous is she now? I don’t know. 

Allison: Yeah, not that terribly famous now, but there are like, the trial, her hearing and her not showing up at the trial was in every single newspaper ever. So, like, the New York City archives has like, you can follow every second of that. So, at the time, that was, like, the O.J. Simpson trial of 1883, or whatever it was. So, at the time, very significant. 

Ann: And if you think about her impact on New York and on all the people who she trained, how many crimes were committed because of her, like, so many things would zoom back into her influence. Like, how many thieves got their start at her academy? [both laugh] Her influence on later generations. But also, I think that she was in all sincerity, like, providing work for all of these new immigrants. Like, she was helping people get their feet in this new city. And then those people and what did their descendants do? Like, how did they settle in? She was sort of elevating the whole neighbourhood and the whole community in a way, I think. But at the same time, her significance, I mean… 

Allison: She’s not like a Teddy Roosevelt. 

Ann: She’s not like an Al Capone. You know, it’s not like… She was significant in the time. Like, I think the ripple effects of her life continue on spiritually in all of today’s grifters. I don’t know for significance. I might say something like a 7 as well. 

Allison: Oh! I was going to say a 5. So, let’s say 6?

Ann: 6. And then this is where I think she’s going to not score amazing, which is a Sexism Bonus. I don’t know if that held her back at all. 

Allison: I think she said, “Fuck that. I don’t care.” [laughs]

Ann: [laughs] It doesn’t seem like anyone was ever like, “A woman crime boss? No.” Like, it seems like everyone, like these terrifying PTA moms. They’re just like, “Oh man, yeah. You can run the bake sale.”

Allison: Yeah. I don’t. And to a certain extent, it might’ve helped her. Like, it gave her notoriety in the criminal sphere, but it also was like, do you really want to bust the neighbourhood mom for crime, or would you rather go after Banjo Pete? That seems like a more obvious criminal to crime. 

Ann: And then also when she, like the first time she was arrested, she was like, “Me? What? Crime?” 

Allison: “A little old lady? Me?” 

Ann: Like, she could lean into it. Like, I don’t think sexism… I don’t know. Honestly, Allison, I’m like, even anti-Semitism. I’m like, did anything stop her? 

Allison: Nothing really did. 

Ann: Only Pete. 

Allison: Only, yeah. The one thing that this book did note is that the kind of jobs she would have been able to get in America as a woman and as a Jewish woman, there were not a lot of options for her other than peddling and crime when she got here. Like, she was not going to be able to say, “I’d like to become a medical doctor,” and then go and make millions like a normal way. So, it’s not nothing. But I agree with you that basically nothing stopped her. [laughs]

Ann: Yeah. It’s like, oh no, she couldn’t become a medical doctor. It’s like, we’re better for it. She shouldn’t have been. 

Allison: Good. [laughs] 

Ann: This is what— But yeah, no, you’re right. It’s not nothing. But so, she kind of, I think just in a very canny way, she’s just like, “Okay, this is the world. This is how the cards that are stacked up against me as, like, a Jewish woman immigrant, and here’s where I can thrive and let’s just do it.” So, I don’t know. Like Sexism, I don’t know, like a 2 or something? 

Allison: I was going to say a 2, yeah. It’s a circumstantial 2 for being the 19th century. 

Ann: This gets her just slightly out of the Allison Epstein Corridor, which for people who don’t know, when Allison is on this podcast, generally everyone who she talks about ends up, without us planning it, with a 23. 

Allison: Every time. 

Ann: Every time. 

Allison: But not this time. 

Ann: No, this time it’s a 25. 

Allison: A 25! That might be my highest score. 

Ann: It’s, yeah, let me see. So, 25. Oh, well, this is, well, this was an Allison episode. Rachel has a 26.

Allison: There we go, okay. But she, spiritually, should be right next to Rachel. 

Ann: Yeah, absolutely. So, I’m just putting her in here officially in my document. So, a 25, let’s see, yeah. Catalina de Erauso, 23.5. Lola Montes, 23. Like, these are the Allison episodes. Empress Elisabeth, 23. Christopher Marlowe, 22.5. This is the Allison Culs-de-Sac. [laughs]

Allison: Yeah, where they’re not significant at all, but they’re tremendous fun to talk about. 

Ann: Yeah, and often it’s like there’s a lot of scandal. 

Allison: There’s always a scheme. 

Ann: There’s scandal and there’s scheming, but often not much else. But always a fantastic story. So, just a sec, yeah. So, I have all the numbers written in. Amazing. I mean, amazing! 

Say the name of the book again that is not your book you’re promoting, but this other person’s book, please. 

Allison: It is called The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum by Margalit Fox. It came out last year, highly recommend. 

Ann: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this was, like, a cool hour and 45 minutes of the upper-level highlights of this story. But reading the book, like, for me personally, I’m like, I need to see this floor plan. 

Allison: It’s worth it for the drawing of the dumb waiter. You’ll lose your mind. 

Ann: I will, I shall. But then also, what is your book that you are promoting? 

Allison: Yes, the book I did write is Fagin the Thief by me, a historical fiction retelling of Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist. If you like a story about a historical Jewish dirtbag thief who’s a terrible person but also delightful, this book is for you. 

Ann: I mean, it’s the two stories, like, they coincide so beautifully, I think. Just kind of like, this real-life person, the character that you’re reclaiming from Charles Dickens’s shitty portrayal of this guy. 

Allison: I’m so glad you did So This Asshole Charles Dickens, so that this episode didn’t have to be me yelling at Charles Dickens, because that’s not fun for me. 

Ann: Yeah, no. So, if the listeners, if you haven’t heard that, it’s on the main feed. I think I released it one year at Christmas to everybody. It was originally a Patreon episode, but then I put it on the main feed. So yeah, So This Asshole Charles Dickens, just scroll back through Vulgar History on your podcast feed. 

What else, Allison? I mean, you’re going on tour. You’re going on a book tour. Your book is being published. So, tell, where can people… Yeah, where can they find you? 

Allison: My book is being published on February the 25th, and to find out everything about that, including where I’m going to go, where I’m going to be, how to pre-order a book if you want, it’s all at my website, AllisonEpstein.com. The only social I’m really on these days is Instagram at @Rapscallison, rapscallion with an S. I’m also on Substack. 

Ann: I was going to say Substack. 

Allison: There will be a Marm Mandelbaum newsletter once I have time to write newsletters again. I write a Substack called “Dirtbags Through the Ages,” which is people who suck in fun ways, sent to your inbox every other week through Substack. I’m taking a brief hiatus while book launch stuff has completely taken over my life, but I will be back in hopefully March with more of that. 

Ann: And so, listeners, you can see me, me! And Allison! In person, in Minneapolis! A city… Have you ever been to Minneapolis? 

Allison: I have, yes. Lovely city. 

Ann: Okay. They have a flour museum. 

Allison: Which is closed the day we’re going to be there; we’ve already checked. 

Ann: Which is tragic, I know. I love a specific museum. Anyway, so we’re going to be in Minneapolis at what’s it called? Magers and Quinn? 

Allison: Magers and Quinn, yes. 

Ann: Magers and Quinn, the bookstore, on Tuesday, March 4th, I think it’s 7:00 PM, I might just be making that up. Anyway, I’ll put the link to that in the show notes for this episode because they prefer if you RSVP. I think you can still just show up, but they want to know how many people are coming, basically. And I do know also that if you’re like, “Oh no! I’m not in Minneapolis.” It’s like, it’s going to be on YouTube later. So, people can hear you and I…

Allison: Yes, they’ve given us permission to record. So, more to come for all later. 

Ann: Exactly. So, if you want to hear us talk about actually Allison’s book, that is what we’re going to be doing there in person. And then also, if you’re in the Minneapolis area and you want to come, we’re going to have a Vulgar History meetup on the next day, so on Wednesday, March 5th. So, go to VulgarHistory.com/Meetup to RSVP for that to get information about where we’re meeting and what we’re going to be doing because I need to know how many people are coming. I feel like this might be a big one. I know there’s at least three people in Minneapolis who listen to this podcast. One of them is Lana Wood Johnson, and other people are there as well. 

Anyway, Allison, thank you so much. This is a delight, and I’m really excited for your book to be unleashed into the world. Does it feel weird to have this book unleashed into the world? 

Allison: It does. I feel weirdly overwhelmed by this one. You’d think it’d get easier, this is my third book, and every single time I’m like, “Oh god! What’s going to happen? Is it going to be okay?” But I love this book, and I’m excited to see it out in the world. My author copies got here last night at 9:30 PM, so I now have them. 

Ann: Oh, the actual books? 

Allison: The actual books, yes. 

Ann: Can you describe on this audio medium… Because the book is really beautiful. It’s got, like, gold… 

Allison: It is really beautiful! They gave me a textured cover, which makes me so happy. It’s this dark, moody, turquoisey blue, but it’s got raised letters that are kind of shiny, and there’s a pocket watch on the front that’s in gold foil, which I love because I love a shiny thing. So, it’s beautiful. 

Ann: As an object, it is delightful. So again, people can get that. It’s available, well, when people hear this episode, one week from now, in North America. And then hopefully, someone is listening to this who is in print in the UK or somewhere else, and they’re like, “Us too!” and then it can get to all these other places as well. 

Allison: Call my agent. We will talk about that. [laughs] 

Ann: We’ll figure it all out.

Thank you, Allison. As forever, I’m sure you’ll be back on talking about something. Who knows? 

Allison: Who knows? I look forward to it. Thanks, Ann. 

Ann: Always a pleasure. 

      —————

It’s always such a pleasure to record with Allison Epstein and I’m really, really, really excited to get to meet Allison in person in a couple of weeks in Minneapolis, where again, if you want to take part in the Minneapolis Vulgar History Tits Out Brigade meetup, go to VulgarHistory.com/Meetup and fill out the Google form there, just so I know how many people to expect and so I can figure out what time of day works best for everybody. I’m really excited to meet you all. And then, of course, if you are there or in the area, it’d be really great to see you also and/or, you know, you can do the meetup and also come to the book event at Majers and Quinn, where Allison and I are going to be talking about Fagin the Thief on Tuesday, March 4th. The link to go to that, you can go to AllisonEpstein.com for a list of all of Allison’s appearances, but also go to, just look at the show notes, scroll down wherever you’re listening to this podcast, and there’ll be a little thing where you can RSVP for the book talk as well. And it will be posted later on YouTube and probably on my Patreon or something, so you can hear us talking in person! It’s going to be a fun time. 

So, in terms of everything, ways that you can keep up with the show and me and what’s going on, as we mentioned in this episode, I wrote a book too! Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain’s Uncrowned Queen, working title. My book is finished, I’m now in the midst of editing it and getting it ready. And if you want to follow along with the journée, look, I don’t know what it’s like, I’m just excited about everything to do with this book, and I want to let you know all this stuff. You know, once there’s a cover, once you can pre-order it and stuff, I’m throwing those details everywhere I can, but the best place to keep up with me in this podcast and book news is by joining my mailing list. This is a once-monthly email that I’m going to send out with the latest news about live events, live Vulgar History events, but also stuff about my book and what’s going on, information about the podcast, and also, I throw in some book and movie reviews there as well. It’s all free. It’s one email a month. I’m not going to spam you. And if you want to get and sign up for that mailing list, go to VulgarHistory.com/News and then there’s like a little form you fill in. Just let me know you want to be on the newsletter. I think there’s one… There’s going to be a newsletter coming out in the next couple of days. So, it’s a good time to sign up for it right now. 

You can also keep up with me. I am on Substack at VulgarHistory.Substack.com. So, every other week, I post essays about women from history, and you can sign up there, that’s free as well. I do want to emphasize that I like this podcast you’re listening to right now is always free. The mailing list, free. Substack, free. I’ve got paid tiers in various places, but it’s really important to me to have my information and, like, most of the stuff I do available to everybody, no matter who you are and what your situation is, financially or whatever. 

You can support the podcast on Patreon for free if you go to Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter, and that’s where I post just sort of, like, interesting news updates. Like, for instance, this month, February 2025, it was announced that Canada Post, the postal system in Canada, every year lately, they’ve been releasing a special commemorative stamp for Black History Month. And this year, I was so excited to see that the stamp that they released is Marie-Josèphe Angélique, who listeners of this podcast might remember from Season Seven, Episode One, this was, like, last spring, we did an episode about her and how she was an icon and how she probably burned down Montreal in an act of resistance against her enslavement. And now she’s a stamp, which I really appreciate, and I think it’s a really cool thing to be commemorating and sharing her story and making her more wider known in the context of just, like, reckoning with our past as a colonial nation, et cetera. Anyway, so I shared the news about that on the Patreon, for instance, and other links about other things like a letter of Mary, Queen of Scots that was up for auction. And also… I’m just basically saying, if you want to keep up, if you want more than just a once-monthly update, which is what the mailing list does, you can just kind of see what I’m doing and also, updates about the book and stuff are on Patreon. Go to Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter. You can join as a free member. 

And then if you want to, if you’re able to, and you want to financially support, you can also pledge $1 a month to get early, ad-free access to all episodes of Vulgar History. If you pledge $5 or more a month, you get also access to bonus episodes, which is things like, So This Asshole we mentioned in this episode, I did an episode, So This Asshole Charles Dickens, which started on the Patreon, and then eventually I shared it to everybody, but there’s lots more episodes about shitty men from history there you can listen to. There’s a whole archive of episodes of Vulgarpiece Theatre, where Allison and I and our friend, Lana Wood Johnson, talk about costume dramas. We’re all super busy at the moment, there will be new episodes of that soon. But if you join right now, there’s a whole back catalogue, and each episode is, like, three-and-a-half hours long, so that can keep you entertained. And also, if you join the Patreon at $5 or more a month, you get to join our Discord, which is just like a big group chat where we’re all just kind of hanging out, sharing pictures of our pets, talking about the Vulgar History episodes and just having a nice time in general. 

We also are proud to be affiliated with the jewelry brand Common Era Jewelry, which is a small, woman-owned business out of New York City, so a bit Marm Mendelbaum vibes there, I guess, just jewelry, New York City. No grifting going on; this is a legitimate operation. So, the designs on Common Era Jewelry are inspired by history, especially classical history and especially women from history and from mythology. Some of the women from mythology who are there are like Aphrodite, Athena, Cersei, Clytemnestra, Persephone, and there’s also historical figures like Boudica, Hatshepsut, Cleopatra, Olga of Kyiv, Sappho, lots of people who have come up in this podcast. The jewelry, it’s sort of like, Torie, the owner, she designs these beautiful, just sort of like images of their face that’s on the jewelry. And then there’s also jewelry inspired, their Esoterica collection is inspired by, like, jewelry that’s been found in archeological digs, looking at sites from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. So, just some beautiful objects there as well. So, if you want to get some beautiful jewelry and just, like, feel like Marm with your gorgeous jewelry on, these pieces are available in solid gold as well as in more affordable gold vermeil. Some of the pieces also have jewels in them. Vulgar History listeners can always get 15% off all items from Common Era by going to CommonEra.com/Vulgar or use code ‘VULGAR’ at checkout. 

You can also support this podcast and just spread the word about it by wearing Vulgar History merchandise or using Vulgar History merchandise. We have T-shirts, but you can also have practical things like a mug, a travel mug, a phone case, a tote bag with just various phrases from the podcast. And you can get that merchandise, go to VulgarHistory.com/Store if you’re in the U.S.; if you’re outside the U.S., I recommend going to VulgarHistory.Redbubble.com. 

If you want to get in touch with me like Irma did about her daughter Carmen’s birthday and graduation, go to VulgarHistory.com. There’s a form there where you can contact me to send me along a message. You can also follow me on social media. I mean, I try to be in all the places. Like, wherever people are, I want to be there talking about the podcast and available for you to reach out to me. So, I’m on Bluesky, I’m on Instagram, I’m on Threads @VulgarHistoryPod. 

Next week, we’re going to be looking at… It’s a classic re-release episode of an episode of Vulgar History from, I think it was Season Two, Women Leaders From History and the Men Who Whined About It, and it’s a really interesting, complex story that I was glad to be revisiting and that’s coming up next week. But in the meantime, people in Minneapolis, I’ll see you in two weeks. Otherwise, people just listen to this. I’ll talk to you next week. And until then, keep your pants on and your tits out. Fuck the Pinkertons. 

Vulgar History is hosted, written, and researched by Ann Foster, that’s me! The editor is Cristina Lumague. Theme music is by the Severn Duo. The Vulgar History show image is by Deborah Wong. Transcripts are written by Aveline Malek. Find transcripts of recent episodes at VulgarHistory.com.

References:

The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum by Margalit Fox

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Sign up for the Vulgar History mailing list!

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Get 15% off all the gorgeous jewellery and accessories at common.era.com/vulgar or go to commonera.com and use code VULGAR at checkout

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Get Vulgar History merch at vulgarhistory.com/store (best for US shipping) and vulgarhistory.redbubble.com (better for international shipping)

[Links from Show Notes]

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