Tenth Issue: Female Criminals in 19th Century New York

 

I found an article on Marm Mandelbaum by accident, and it led me down a rabbit hole of fascinating facts about the world of female criminals in New York City in the mid 19^th century. Marm Mandelbaum’s real first name was Fredericka, but she was known as Marm because she was basically a mother to the other criminals and street gangs in the NYC underworld of the time. She was born in Germany to a Jewish family, and married a man named Wolfe, they came to New York in 1850. They began by buying a dry goods store, which became a front for the criminal operations that they became involved in. Basically, Mandelbaum started out by financing and supporting some thieves and burglars, and helped plan some of the most notorious thefts in the city, such as the Manhattan Bank Robbery. She was in charge of a few different gangs of conmen and she even started a school to teach kids how to be good pickpockets. Below is an artistic depiction of her, I couldn't find any actual photos unfortunately.

Mandelbaum was basically the Queen of the criminal underworld, and she paid special attention to the female criminals. She was a hostess to criminals and held extravagant dinner parties. (It is the list of criminals that she hosted that led me down delightful Wikipedia rabbit holes by the way!).

 

Anyway, sadly Marm Mandelbaum’s reign couldn’t last forever, and in 1884 the New York District Attorney hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency. They sent in one of their detectives as an undercover agent, who had marked bolts of silk stolen and then those same silk bolts were found in Mandelbaum’s home the next morning when the police raided it. Mandelbaum got out on bail and fled to Canada with more than a million dollars! She lived the rest of her life peacefully in Ontario. Here are a few more articles about her that I found, but I find the 'yay feminism!' angle to be unsettling, as these ladies were all Criminals.

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One of the members of Mandelbaum’s inner circle was “Little” Annie Reilly. She was known in her time as “the cleverest woman in her line in America”. She was born in Ireland in 1844, but moved New York City and worked as a servant and nanny. She looked younger than her age, and was both charming and intelligent, fluent in two or three languages. She would gain the confidence of the lady of the house, usually by being loving and caring towards the children, and then rob the house of jewelry, maybe even five thousand dollars’ worth. She moved from home to home, and was known mainly in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. In 1873, Annie was caught while robbing a home on East 84^th Street, and she was found guilsty of grand larceny. Four years later, she was released, and three years after that she was arrested again for stealing from a home on Second Avenue. She was imprisoned for that for three more years. Once she was released, she got a job at the New York Hotel and stole $3500 worth of jewelry from guests. She was caught stealing a watch and chain from a young man and was sentenced to another four and a half years in prison. When she died, she was the most prolific female thief in the country up to that point. Below is a picture of her.

 

 

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Another fascinating female criminal of the time was Sophie Lyons. She was a thief and conwoman, and was one of the most wanted criminal in Philadelphia, Boston, and Montreal, as well as her two husbands. Sophie’s whole family was full of criminals – her grandfather was a safe-cracker and her parents already had records before they came to the United States from England. Her mother was a “keeper of a disorderly house” in New York, whatever that means. Sophie claimed she started stealing things when she was three years old, but her first arrest on record is from when she was twelve.

Sophie married when she was 16, but her husband was sent to prison for pickpocketing, so that relationship ended. She was known for being a fantastic actress, and was adept at persuading people to let her go when she was caught. She even persuaded a store detective in 1880 that he should let her go because she suffered from kleptomania.

Sophie married Ned Lyons, who was known as “King of the Bank Robbers”, and had three children with him. Ned used some of his money from robbing banks to buy a villa in Long Island where he told Sophie she could settle down with the kids, but Sophie didn’t want to stop stealing. They both got thrown in jail, but Ned escaped in 1872 and helped Sophie escape, wearing a disguise and breaking through a wall. They escaped to Paris where Sophie changed her name to Madame d’Varney and kept on doing crimes.

 

 

Sophie had some drama with her son, George. In 1880, when he was fourteen, she took him to court, and told the judge he wouldn’t go to school, didn’t come home at night, and was “generally unruly”. She wanted him put into a juvenile correctional facility. George in turn protested that his mother was a thief and shoplifter, and that he had recommendations from people showing his “good character”. Sophie confessed that she had been a criminal, but she also said that she spent a lot of time trying to get her son on the right path. Her daughters were in school in Germany, and she had tried to get George into three different schools in Canada. Instead of going to school, George had begun going to the Sixth Street saloon where he performed as a singer and hang out with criminals. Sophie said that George had gotten one of his “recommendations of good character” by threatening a former employer with a knife.

Sophie got her son back to her house and had him arrested by waiting police officers. George said he did argue with his former employer, and picked up a carving knife, but didn’t use it against her. He was disruptive and the whole situation was dramatic and chaotic. The judge ruled that George would be held in custody until everything was sorted out, and George had to be taken from the court room by police. He ended up dying in prison not long after. His two sisters became nuns.

Sophie ended up joining a gang in the Midwest led by Billy Burk, who she married, and she moved back to New York in 1895 where she was under police surveillance a lot. A year later, she went into a store but a woman named Mary Plunkett recognized her and tried to forcibly take her to the police. A crowd gathered especially when Mary told them who Sophie Lyons was. Sophie ran, Mary in hot pursuit, and Sophie made it to a streetcar, where Mary told the driver that Sophie was wanted by the police. The driver said that was none of his business, but Mary ran ahead and got the police so they could  get Sophie at the next stop.

Sophie was arrested, but her case was dismissed as she hadn’t actually stolen anything when Mary grabbed her. In 1913, Sophie finally retired from her life of crime and became a philanthropist and prison reformer. She wrote a book called “Why Crime Does Not Pay” and tried to reform criminals. She owned forty houses and let any reformed criminals stay there. She also opened a home for juvenile delinquents.

In 1922, when Sophie was seventy three years old, she got robbed of bonds and diamonds. She said she “had no idea who did the job, and [she was] unhappy to think that men would do such a thing to an old woman who devotes a large income to prison relief work”. Most people around at the time didn’t know of her criminal past. She died a year later.

Some other cool anecdotes about Sophie Lyon’s exploits are as follows:

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There was another person involved in this criminal circle I found interesting, his name was Adam Worth and they say he was the basis for the Moriarty character in Sherlock Holmes stories. You can read about him here.

This is totally unrelated to anything above, but I'll leave you with some great pictures of Joe Carstairs, a lesbian race car driver who also ran an all-women fleet of chauffeurs from a garage which she used to transport WWI widows and mothers to their soldier's gravesites. (Sidenote: her stepfather, who she hated, was famous for transplanting monkey testicles into human men to increase their virility). The last picture is Joe with her favorite doll, Sir Tod. He was buried with her.