There is a small chance I may have overestimated my interest in swindles. Swindling, unlike hoaxing, is more of a purely financial thing and reading about finances (stolen or otherwise) just isn’t all that exciting…unless you’re specifically into that sort of thing.
Then again, there’s something inherently fun about swindling, the same way there’s something inherently fun about cons…for a con is a game, you know, a con game implying it requires at least two players. So many crimes are just about terrible people doing terrible things to perfectly good, perfectly innocent other people, but conning someone is different for it requires at least an unwitting victim’s participation. In other words, a con game or a swindle is a spotlight that showcases the best and brightest in the gullible field. Step right up and buy shares in places that don’t exist, for the men and women featured in this book were trading in the most enticing fictions of their time.
Whether trading on their nonexistent connections to a Carnegie fortune or Francis Drake’s one or going outside of the bounds of material world altogether, there’s a certain creativity at play here, a certain boldness, a certain panache that’s just fun to read about.
There are seven chapters in this book, seven famous swindlers. The eponymous century the author selected is 1850-1950, the place is US. A new country with fresh cash seemingly primed for the taking.
This is something that interests me, so I’ve heard/read about some of these stories and these characters before (I mean, you don’t just forget about someone named Lord Gordon Gordon) but it was still enjoyable to revisit the familiar players and cons and discover some new ones.
I’m not familiar with the author, but she did an excellent job of bringing these swindlers to life, her writing erudite, entertaining and surprisingly (pleasant surprise, that is) literary for a work of nonfiction. There were photos in the book too, which was nice. The publisher provided ARC was of a disappointing quality, though, with tons of formatting quirks and occasional unfinished sentence, which detracted considerably form the reading enjoyment. No idea why publishers think it’s ok to provide a book in this condition. I shall endeavor to remember to stay away from their ARCs in the future.
Otherwise, a pretty infortaining (first time using that portmanteau) book and a reasonably quick read for nonfiction. A nice reminder to check your naiveté’s for there might be someone scheming to take advantage of it out there at this very moment. Thanks Netgalley.

Contrary to the well-worn aphorism, it’s pretty easy to con an honest man. Financial predators trade on the loneliness of the elderly, the fear of the indebted, and the credulity of the helpful.
Loaning a stranger money for his grandmother’s operation or hiring a fixer to help reduce your credit card debt can be a financially disastrous mistake, but I don’t think it says anything about a person’s basic interpersonal honesty.
The original saying has this connotation about greedy people getting fleeced by even greedier people. From an outside perspective, there’s a certain sense of comeuppance when people believe in massive returns on minimal investments since greed isn’t something we praise.
But even these cons can work on otherwise honest people when they’re short-term hustles.
“You can’t con an honest man,” is supposed to make us feel better about people being bilked out of their life savings when they clearly were trying to get something for nothing. In some ways, given that the mark was complicit in their own undoing, con artists are committing a victimless crime.
It also fits nicely into our larger myths, where every tale has a moral and the only way to succeed is to rise above the petty human condition. Mostly, though, it appeals to our sense of moral superiority. Bad things happen to bad people, and the greedy will never see it coming.
Of course, this is all bunk. No one deserves to be lied to, bullied, or intimidated just so someone else doesn’t have to get a day job. This makes intellectual sense, and two years ago it also passed the gut-check test, but every day that the pandemic drags on, it gets harder to pity the gullible and at least as difficult to choke back Schadenfreude.
Revenge tales feel good for a reason. We need comeuppance to keep our delicate conception of morality in check.
What distinguishes the truly prodigious con artist from a petty thief is their ability to make marks complicit in their own fleecing. Maybe we can say you can’t con an intellectually honest person.
In an era that seems desperate to distinguish itself by its aggressive ignorance, it makes sense to dip back into our history if only to recall that the willfully stupid and arrogantly self-important aren’t just natural victims but also catalysts for predators.
They create and sustain intellectual and emotional profiteers by a stunning overconfidence in their own cleverness. They know that no one could possibly deceive them and/or that no one would dare try. As a result, the more audacious the lie, the easier it is to swallow.

Coming to Terms With the Influencer
While Railey Jane Savage’s A Century of Swindles: Ponzi Schemes, Con Men, and Fraudsters is a history book on its face, recounting with wit and detail several big cons in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it reads just as well as cultural criticism.
We know the archetypes because they are in the news today; they are on Twitter and Facebook and making a bloody fortune being contrarian.
In the story about Elizabeth Bigley, a psychic who convinced some of the country’s wealthiest people she was Andrew Carnegie’s illegitimate daughter, Savage writes, “She had manufactured legitimacy and sold it with boldness.”
Carnegie, upon whose name Bigley drew massive amounts of credit, thought it was amusing that his name could be used to such effect.
The thread that runs through the seven short histories (although each stands alone) is this notion of influence that I just couldn’t shake. It doesn’t take much effort on the reader’s part to imagine any of the Instagram accounts that would have been associated with these hucksters, and I don’t think that is an accident.
Savage paints the pictures that her subjects would have happily snapped themselves had they the technology. All but one of the profiled scammers captured the public’s imagination visually, or at least tonally. People who dressed as they did, or who carried themselves in a certain way, couldn’t have possibly been thieves.
This isn’t to say that they were necessarily good-looking people, only that most of them cultivated a sense of wealth and/or power simply by acting the part.
It is frustrating to watch as Savage (who allows the scammers no quarter for their ridiculous claims) gives lie time and again to the notion that wealth and success in America have anything to do with brains or cunning.
The wealthy in this work are so gullible and so desperate to increase their own wealth, status, and influence as to be beyond pity, at least on the face of it. Taking a step back we may better see how fragile the notion of influence can be, and how we support it, essentially weaponizing our attention for use against us.
At every turn, our inclination to blame the gullible ends up indicting us as well.

Learning to Use Fake News
As amusing as it is to see people decry “the media” as if it has undergone a fundamental change, it is worth noting that using the mass distrust of the press isn’t any more novel than the other common scammer tactics.
What the con artist knows is that newspapers tell the truth when we agree, and lie when we disagree. What is actually in the paper very rarely matters when it comes to changing perception.
In the wonderfully twisted story of the Drake scam–a bold lie that convinced hundreds if not thousands of Americans that England (the country) would be liquidating many of its assets because of a forgotten debt to Sir Francis Drake’s secret heir–newspapers do a great job in supporting the lie with coverage.
Once the scam is revealed, however, the papers were impotent in convincing the victims about the scam. No matter the amount of reporting on the shaky deals, the ongoing investigations, or the criminal arrests of some of the perpetrators, many members of the public would not be moved.
It’s critical to see how we participate in these kinds of mass denials. There is more than a little shame in falling for a story so blatantly fabricated. While there is no shame at all in sticking to your guns and following your gut.
Savage writes:
Sure the overwhelming majority could look at facts contained in documents, testimony, and tradition and arrive at a consensus of what is reality. But a minority chorus of cheekily posed what-ifs, demanding a reexamination of this reality and demanding revision to right perceived wrongs, wears away the integrity of the otherwise accepted state of being.
It is so much easier to keep believing in something than it is to stop believing in it once you are completely invested.
The confidence with which these fraudsters deny reality, even as the scams crumble around them, is unchanged in the last 200 years in America. If you repeat anything enough, some people will start to believe it is true.
The scammer disregards evidence presented against them as if ignoring charges is the same thing as refuting them.
And it works every time.

Undermining the Experts
These aren’t people trading on talent. They’re not particularly inventive storytellers or even expert forgers, which at least requires craft. If these con artists have a talent, it is for sniffing out vanity in others and exploiting it by creating a new reality and forcing it upon the people around them.
In the story of an elaborate diamond hoax, wherein the scammers buy cheap diamonds, literally spread them around on the ground, and convince some of the country’s wealthiest men to buy up the diamond fields, expertise fails to rise to the challenge of intellectual honesty.
It starts simply enough, with an endorsement from famous jeweler Charles Lewis Tiffany. Asked to value the off-brand diamonds, Tiffany could have easily said, “I only deal in finished diamonds.”
Instead, the jeweler valued the diamonds at $150,000. In fact, the stones he saw were only a portion of the raw gems the perpetrators bought in England for something closer to $2,000. But, as with Carnegie, Tiffany’s word was good enough to trade on.
The geologist who had examined the fields was too much taken in by the vast diamond fields to smell a scam. By the time he corrected his misdiagnosis, most of the damage had been done.
His failure caused something of a ripple in the mining community and Savage reproduces an editorial from Engineering and Mining Journal from dated Dec. 10, 1892:
We have warned the profession, again and again, the devices of swindlers are innumerable and profoundly ingenious. The more eminent an expert is, and the more widely known for cautious and even cynical judgments, the more anxious are the speculators to secure, by fair means of foul, his favorable opinion.
As with all of the stories, Savage clips along at every turn, stopping only to look at the remarkable details insofar as they support the larger narrative. The concise prose helps give these compressed histories life and urgency. What’s equally important, though, is that she allows the themes to rise out of that history.
The mechanism of the scams may have changed, but the bones are still there. If you tell a big enough lie for money and refuse to back down, people will eventually pay you.
It is interesting and fitting that, while there is little in the way of satisfying endings in terms of punishment, the bones of the scams are unearthed for our own examination.
Scroll through the latest conspiracy scammer nonsense and you will find that they haven’t changed in structure or execution in a very long time. From the quackery of selling “Oxigenized Air” to the promise of speaking to the dead, hope for miracle cures or access to the afterlife is always going to sell, and Americans are always going to buy.

A Pattern Emerges
Each of the stories has a central tension. The reader knows the con from the very beginning and watching people get taken in again and again, seeing how the fraudsters double down on every lie, and realizing that (in some cases) they retained sway over their followers from jail stirs outrage.
We’re mad at the thieves, but even more angry at the marks and the middlemen. Those who were conned because they believed and those who were conned because they were greedy share a frustrating credulity.
We want to shake them. We want to shout at the scammers to shut up. Of course, by the time they’re made to shut up, it is too late.
As I revised this review for publication, the news came out that Alex Jones has been held liable for spreading the Sandy Hook hoax. That’s all well and good. He, like many of the fraudsters in Savage’s book, may die broke and alone, but the damage is done. His remaining supporters will continue to fund him and to decry the witch hunt that has sought to silence this noble truthteller.
As Savage said, the integrity of our shared reality has already been undermined. It’s a shame something so easy to give is so difficult to get back.

This is a title I'm highly likely to get in store and attempt to handsell. I'm attempting to make a financial crime reading list and always try to have at least a few items on hand in the field. I like to portray it as a sort of thinking man's true crime, and you see some similar psychological features between the financial criminal and the serial killer (sometimes, as in the case of the mall passer, they both may converge).

The perfect bedside book. I have been reading this text bit by bit every night before bed, and its compelling structure and story selection makes it hard to put down after thirty minutes. If you're looking for some bite sized education, this is a solid addition to your repertoire.

A fun little romp through American swindling between 1850 and 1950. On my most optimistic days, I see America as a nation of con artists and petty thieves, using pure braggadocio to get by. I'm sure other cultures have their own versions of this persona, but there is a distinctly American quality to it as well.

Railey Jane Savage shares with us a nice variety of conmen and conwomen here, a real poo poo platter of the worst (or best) that American had to offer. Every section is fun, well-researched, and often full of a cast of characters fit for a Guy Ritchie movie. She writes with verve and sparkle; I always appreciate a narrator who can inject some personality into her prose, even for non-fiction.

However, the stories started to blur together for me. Many of the crimes focused on fraud, as there was no central system to check credit or reserve funds during these days. The overlap got a bit tiresome, and I found myself skimming through several of the chapters. This project is a fun exercise, but couldn't hold my attention past the first half with the repetition and onslaught of names.

I generally love books about swindles, cons, and assorted grifters, no matter the time period - after all, Bernie Madoff is just Charles Ponzi with internet access.

Neither of those men play a part in this book. Not including Ponzi was an interesting omission, as the book covers selected people and incidents between 1850 and 1950 and Ponzi was active within that period, but perhaps that's because so much has been written about him that having another swindler in line to step up to the spotlight was a good call.

While the book covers other con men and women and their schemes, the most fascinating one for me was the one that leads the book: Gordon Gordon, the supposed Lord of Glencairn, from Scotland, once he flees England to America, first trying to swindle people with land deals in Minnesota, and moving from there to New York This is mainly due to him interacting with many of the biggest power brokers of the gilded age. Among them were Horace Greeley ("Go west, young man!") and shady mogul Jay Gould, whose was up to his eyeballs in his own scandal in the Erie Railroad, and who was so desperate he went along with what could only be termed a fantastical scheme cooked up by Gordon Gordon, and wound up just another mark. As Gordon Gordon's con plays out, another figure pops up, although briefly: Diamond Jim Fisk. This was at a time when those various power brokers were trying to corner the gold market via claims in Alaska. Why did this please me? Because I have read and reviewed a book solely about that attempt called A Most Wicked Conspiracy (I gave it five stars, it's excellent).

The others, comparatively, didn't grab me the way the Gordon con did, but that were all readable and interesting in their own way - and likely things most people have never heard about. The last chapter, dealing with the faked Drake disk - supposed set by Francis Drake as he circumnavigated the globe, came in second for me, and I felt rather badly for the man who was basically pranked by so-called friends. I thought that was rather nasty work.

I realize the ebook version sometimes has its issues with ARCS and their formatting, but the formatting was atrocious., with giant, bold text at random places, giving the publisher name, but also sometimes containing a piece of a sentence, and in the middle of the page. The beginning of each chapter gives the date, place, amount of the con and the things it involve (free hotels, jewels, cash, etc), and the main assorted players. These were also often formatted poorly, and I hope that is repaired prior to publication.

Overall: four out of five stars.

Thanks to Rowan & Littlefield, Lyons Press, and NetGalley for the reading copy.

It seems that this book just Isn't For Me™. Fascinating as the concept is, and try as I might to focus, my mind wanders; I can't concentrate on the case files playing out, I get characters and plots mixed up. My lack of interest in this book is likely far more on my part than the author's, but something isn't clicking here.

From other reviews, it's clear that there is a great deal of factual entertainment to be found in 'A Century of Swindles'. In any case, somebody will adore this true crime book, even if it isn't my favorite.

This arresting book Nonfiction book contains stories of American swindles and cons from 1850-1950 before the advent of the internet, before word spread like wildfire. Such daring and deception is mind boggling! What people did...and what drove them to their actions...is discussed here. Some were preposterous, a few a bit more believable, but all fascinating to read many decades later. Reading these stories I couldn't help but feel a tiny bit of appreciation for what went into intricate plans.

Written with wit and cleverness, the author uses interviews, quotes and documents as well as photographs and newspaper advertisements ("died yesterday" struck me in particular!) to draw information from. Victims of these swindles felt taken, foolish and angered, just as they would now. I can almost picture and hear Lord Gordon's "cworner lots" as he carefully avoided being photographed in his own way. His deeds, imprisonment and demise are all detailed. Reading about the "afters" is fascinating.

The California gold rush drove people to do things they typically couldn't. The story about staking claims, bags of gems, adventure, gold and arranged "hidden" gems is gripping. We are also told about Dr. Blood and his "invention" and marketing. Princess Editha Montez really takes the cake, though. Her tooth cavity trick is almost laughable. As a spiritualist she used various...er...mediums. It actually seems as though she believed her own lies and was put out when others didn't! And then there's Betty Bigley who used her calling cards in a special and devious way. We read of the scammer with a surprising Andrew Carnegie link. Circus trials, fraud, inheritance claims, buying cars for people with others' money...wow. Interesting stuff.

Nonfiction and History readers, do pick this up. I learned a lot!

My sincere thank you to Rowman & Littlefield, Lyons Press and NetGalley for the privilege of reading this amusing book.

Swindlers, con men! I do enjoy con stories and was really looking forward to reading this book. It covers seven American cases from 1850 - 1950. These are old cases where some of them may not even have much publications on them. But it never felt that way in this book. There was a lot of research done in this book, and for that I appreciate the author's hard work!

Unfortunately, I ended up not finishing this book. I struggled with the writing which was a little dry and textbook-like. However, I am rating this book based on the contents which I think they are interesting albeit lesser-known cases.

Pub. Date: Sep 1, 2021

***Thank you Lyons Press and NetGalley for this gifted review copy to read and review. All opinions expressed are my own.***

I like reading history (especially true crime) and I thought this would be interesting. I wasn't disappointed. It had stories I hadn't come across before.