The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum: The Rise and Fall of an American Organized-Crime Boss
By Margalit Fox
Random House, 2025

America’s first great organized-crime lord was a nice Jewish mother named Mrs. Mandelbaum. In 1850, an impoverished twenty-five-year-old Fredericka Mandelbaum came to New York in steerage and worked as a peddler on the streets of Manhattan. By the 1870s she had become the country’s most notorious “fence”—a receiver of stolen goods—and criminal mastermind. 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.

This event is presented in partnership with Seaside Jewish Community. 

About the Author
Margalit Fox originally trained as a cellist and a linguist before pursuing journalism. Winner of the William Saroyan Prize for Literature and author of four previous nonfiction books, The Confidence Men, Conan Doyle for the Defense, The Riddle of the Labyrinth and Talking Hands, Fox lives in Manhattan with her husband.

Purchase the book
Please help support local independent bookstores by purchasing this book at Browseabout Books, official bookseller of the History Book Festival. Online sources and digital versions are tempting; however, supporting local brick and mortar shops helps to preserve our vibrant main streets. Drop by Browseabout, order books online, or call the store at 302-226-2665. You also may purchase a copy at biblion in Lewes.

About the Festival
The History Book Festival is the first and only book festival in the United States devoted exclusively to history. With the help of our presenting funding partners — Delaware Humanities and The Lee Ann Wilkinson Group, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices | PenFed Realty — as well as our program and community partners, volunteers, and donors, the 2025 History Book Festival will be full of great discussions with authors of newly published narrative nonfiction and historical fiction. 

Thanks to all of our donors, especially our education and outreach funding partners: Ronald Collins & Susan Cohen, Carolyn & Aaron Nayer, Jen Mason & Clare Hancock, and Browseabout Books. HBF authors visit classrooms in Delaware, and HBF provides their books to schools, libraries, and community organizations.

Our Keynote event is presented by Griswold Home Care for Sussex and Kent Counties and Sally Mott Freeman & John K. Freeman; our Closing event is presented by the Delaware Community Foundation. Saturday’s Spirited Discussion, our gathering for attendees and presenters to celebrate and discuss their day, is presented by Dogfish Head Beer & Benevolence.

Special thanks to our Founding Program Partners for their continuing support: the Lewes Public Library, for event promotion and production, and Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach, official bookseller of the History Book Festival. Thanks also to the  Lewes Chamber of Commerce for event promotion, and the Cape Gazette and Delmarva Public Media, our media partners.