Americas First Crime Boss Was Female Immigrant-Turned-Criminal Mastermind

Published: Aug. 1, 2024, 11 a.m.

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...