EVENTS

Margalit Fox: The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum: The Rise and Fall of an American Organized-Crime Boss

February 26, 2025

--

Time: 7pm – 9pm

Tickets: $10 ticket or $38 ticket and book bundle

Presented with: Dallas Jewish Historical Society

America’s first great organized-crime lord was a lady—a nice Jewish mother named Mrs. Mandelbaum.

In 1850, an impoverished twenty-five-year-old named Fredericka Mandelbaum came to New York in steerage and worked as a peddler on the streets of Lower Manhattan. By the 1870s she was a fixture of high society and an admired philanthropist. How was she able to ascend from tenement poverty to vast wealth?

In the intervening years, “Marm” Mandelbaum had become the country’s most notorious “fence”—a receiver of stolen goods—and a criminal mastermind. By the mid-1880s as much as $10 million worth of purloined luxury goods (nearly $300 million today) had passed through her Lower East Side shop. Called “the nucleus and center of the whole organization of crime,” she planned robberies of cash, gold and diamonds throughout the country.

But Mrs. Mandelbaum wasn’t just a successful crook: She was a business visionary—one of the first entrepreneurs in America to systemize the scattershot enterprise of property crime. Handpicking a cadre of the finest bank robbers, housebreakers and shoplifters, she handled logistics and organized supply chains—turning theft into a viable, scalable business.

The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum paints a vivid portrait of Gilded Age New York—a city teeming with nefarious rogues, capitalist power brokers and Tammany Hall bigwigs, all straddling the line between underworld enterprise and “legitimate” commerce. Combining deep historical research with the narrative flair for which she is celebrated, Margalit Fox tells the unforgettable true story of a once-famous heroine whose life exemplifies America’s cherished rags-to-riches narrative while simultaneously upending it entirely.

Author bio:

Margalit Fox originally trained as a cellist and a linguist before pursuing journalism. As a senior writer in the New York Times’s Obituary News Department, she wrote front-page public sendoffs for some of the leading cultural figures of our age. Winner of the William Saroyan Prize for Literature and author of four previous books, The Confidence Men, Conan Doyle for the Defense, The Riddle of the Labyrinth, and Talking Hands, Fox lives in Manhattan with her husband.

My Clients

Client LogoClient LogoClient LogoClient LogoClient Logo
Client LogoClient LogoClient LogoClient LogoClient Logo
Client LogoClient LogoClient LogoClient LogoClient Logo

TRENDING EVENTS

VIEW ALL EVENTS

Chef Moshe Basson: The Eucalyptus Cookbook

November 6, 2024
LEARN MORE

Improv 8+

September 24, 2024
LEARN MORE

Break Program: November Break

November 4, 2024
LEARN MORE
JOIN JDALLAS

BECOME A
MEMBER

At the Dallas JCC, you can enjoy the benefits of being a member in our inclusive environment! This membership offers you a fantastic array of opportunities for both fitness enthusiasts and those seeking diverse cultural, learning, and social experiences
JOIN NOW
  • State of the Art Fitness Center
  • 3-Court Gymnasium
  • Outdoor Tennis Courts
  • Indoor/Outdoor Pool
  • So Much More
Let's work together
·
Let's work together
·
Let's work together
·
Let's work together
·
Let's work together
·
Let's work together
·
Let's work together
·
Let's work together
·
Let's work together
·
Let's work together
·
Let's work together
·
Let's work together
·
Let's work together
·
Let's work together