New York in the 1850s: At the head of the underworld was a woman from Kassel. (Archive image)
© IMAGO / agefotostock
She made it to the top of the New York underworld. How a woman from Kassel became the city’s first millionaire.
Kassel / New York – When she left Kassel in 1850, she was very poor. In New York she became the most famous gangster in the city and was associated with high society: Mother Almondbaum, the queen of thieves.
Last Sunday (January 2nd, 2022), the ZDF documentary series “Terra X” with the title “A day in New York 1882” reported on Fredericka Mandelbaum, who has now almost been forgotten. The post also mentioned that she was born in Kassel. We went on a search for clues.
Woman at the top of the New York underworld: this is where she spent her childhood in Kassel
Friederika Weisner, that was Mandelbaum’s maiden name, was born on March 25, 1825 as the daughter of a Jewish family in the old town of Kassel. She was the daughter of Samuel Abraham and Regine Weisner. Mandelbaum had two older brothers and four younger siblings. According to Kassel’s address book from 1834, the family lived at Theresienstraße 548 at that time.
Residence of the Weisner family in Theresienstraße in the old town of Kassel: This is where the future queen of New York’s underworld spent her childhood.
© Map: City Archives Kassel, Graphic: Yvonne Hermes
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This street no longer exists today. It was a connecting road between Müllergasse and Schäfergasse. According to Florian Franzmann, an employee of the city archives, Theresienstraße was run as the lower Schäfergasse from 1766 (a bend from the upper Schäfergasse).
Kassel in the 18th century: Vulgar street names were renamed
Karl-Hermann Wegner, former head of the city museum, suspects that Theresienstraße could also have been a saint’s name for a street. Landgrave Friedrich II von Hessen-Kassel (1720 to 1785) said that many street names in the old town of Kassel were too vulgar. That’s why he renamed them after saints. If so, it does not seem to have had any effect on Fredericka’s later career choice. Her father Samuel Weisner’s profession as a trader was recorded in the address book.
Theresienstraße was in the immediate vicinity of the Kassel synagogue on Bremer Straße. Numerous Jews lived there at that time, says Franzmann. Today it is comparable to Oberzwehren, where many Muslims would move because of the proximity to the mosque on the Mattenberg.
Anti-Semitism drove the family away – Weisner founded his family in Kassel
Rona Holub, director of the Graduate School of Women’s History at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, wrote in an essay on Mandelbaum that her grandfather was a merchant, probably a roaming peddler. The family was rooted in the Kassel region. Fredericka’s great-grandparents moved to the village of Abterode (today Werra-Meißner district) in the 18th century.
In Abterode, however, Jews were considered outsiders and were often physically attacked. Some have paid protection money to avoid attacks. “The religious intolerance of the community may have been one of the reasons the family left,” writes Holub. That could explain why Samuel Weisner and his brothers were later born in Schwerin, Duchy of Mecklenburg, or Grebenstein (Kurhessen-Kassel). Samuel Weisner eventually founded his family in Kassel.
Later Queen of the New York Underworld: Did Mrs. Mandelbaum go to school on Koenigsplatz?
At that time, Jews fared better in Kurhessen than elsewhere, says Karl-Hermann Wegner. In the Electoral Hesse constitution of 1831, which was relatively liberal, they would have enjoyed all civil rights. Wegner also points out that it was quite possible that Fredericka attended the free school on Königsplatz, where no school fees were charged.
Regardless of the exact circumstances, according to researcher Holub, Fredericka has developed a keen intellect, strong work ethic, and confidence in her own abilities. Almondbaum also always had strong ties to its traditional roots. In every place where she lived, she visited the synagogue and supported it.
From Kassel to New York: The rise of the Kassler woman began in the USA
On November 26, 1848, she married Wolf Israel Mandelbaum, a peddler from Grebenstein. She also worked as a peddler until she and her family emigrated to the United States of America after the birth of their first child.
The Mandelbaums settled in New York City in 1850 during the great wave of German and Irish immigration to the United States. Almondbaum arrived poor and, starting as a peddler, built a successful business as a criminal entrepreneur.
1884: Woman from Kassel at the head of the largest criminal organization in New York
Wikipedia says: When the family arrived in New York, they started a number of smaller businesses that recycled and sold rubbish. The Almond Tree bought a dry goods store on Clinton Street. From 1854, their stores served as a cover for organized criminal transactions. Pickpocketing, robbery and racketeering were the main sources of income. By 1884, their “Marm’s Grand Street Gang School” had grown to become the largest criminal organization in New York.
This was a school to recruit criminals and teach them how to pickpockets. At that time, Mandelbaum also frequented high society, in which, in addition to underworld bosses, people from politics, the judiciary and the police apparatus moved. She knew the police chief. Her daughter Anna was married to a leading politician, according to “Terra X”. The queen of the underworld seemed inviolable.
After the top came the case: spies were the undoing of the Queen from Kassel
Until 1884, when the district attorney’s office smuggled an undercover woman into Mandelbaum’s organization in order to convict her by means of a sham deal. When she was provisionally released on bail with her son Julius and her general manager, Fredericka Mandelbaum fled to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, with an estimated one million US dollars. She died there in 1894.
Mandelbaum’s charisma was one of the keys to her success, says the scientist Holub. She appears to have been a charming woman who was able to ingratiate herself with a diverse group of people: elite criminals, “legitimate” business people who have bailed out after being imprisoned, and members of the criminal justice system, including the police, judges and prosecutors . (Ulrike Pflüger-Scherb)
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