The Urban Underworld in Late Nineteenth-Century New York: The Autobiography of George Appo with Related Documents / Edition 1
by Timothy Gilfoyle
Through the colorful autobiography of pickpocket and con man George Appo, Timothy Gilfoyle brings to life the opium dens, organized criminals, and prisons that comprised the rapidly changing criminal underworld of late nineteenth-century America. The book's introduction and supporting documents, which include investigative reports and descriptions of Appo and his
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Through the colorful autobiography of pickpocket and con man George Appo, Timothy Gilfoyle brings to life the opium dens, organized criminals, and prisons that comprised the rapidly changing criminal underworld of late nineteenth-century America. The book's introduction and supporting documents, which include investigative reports and descriptions of Appo and his world, connect Appo's memoir to the larger story of urban New York and how and why crime changed during this period. It also explores factors of race and class that led some to a life of crime, the experience of criminal justice and incarceration, and the masculine codes of honor that marked the emergence of the nation's criminal subculture. Document headnotes, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography offer additional pedagogical support.
Product Details
- ISBN-13:
- 9780312607623
- Publisher:
- Bedford/St. Martin's
- Publication date:
- 01/04/2013
- Edition description:
- First Edition
- Pages:
- 208
- Sales rank:
- 997,475
- Product dimensions:
- 5.30(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.60(d)
Table of Contents
Foreword v
Preface vii
List of Illustrations xvi
Part 1 Introduction: Cultures of Crime 1
Who Was George Appo? 2
The Rise of the Pickpocket 4
Drugs and Crime 8
Green Goods 9
Policing the Industrial City 11
Politics and Crime 14
The Penitentiary 16
Good Fellows 19
Progressive Criminology 20
The Criminal Memoir 22
Appo Transformed 25
Appo's Memory 26
Appo and the Emergence of Organized Crime 28
Part 2 The Autobiography of George Appo 35
Childhood 35
The Penitentiary 41
Jack Collins, Tom Lee, and Fred Crage 50
Sing Sing Again 54
Philadelphia 62
Thomas Wilson 67
Green Goods 70
Poughkeepsie 75
Clinton Again 80
Stealing Guys 84
The Lexow Committee 85
In the Tenderloin 89
Violence 92
Matteawan 95
Reform 101
Good Fellows 106
Reflections 112
Part 3 Related Documents 119
1 George Appo in His Words and Those of Others 121
1 Louis J. Beck, New York's Chinatown, 1898 121
2 George Appo, Letter to Governor Theodore Roosevelt, May 9, 1899 126
3 Dr. Henry E. Allison, Report on George W. Appo, 1899 128
4 Lewis E. Lawes, Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing, 1932 130
5 Bronx Home News, Obituary of George Appo, June 15, 1930 134
2 Subcultures of Crime 137
6 George W. Matsell, Vocabulum; or. The Rogue's Lexicon, 1859 137
7 New York State Assembly, Report of the Select Committee Appointed by the Assembly of 1875 to Investigate the Causes of the Increase of Crime in the City of New York, 1876 140
8 New York State Senate, Report and Proceedings of the Senate Committee Appointed to Investigate the Police Department of the City of New York, 1895 146
9 Thomas Byrnes, Professional Criminals of America, 1886 150
10 Lincoln Steffens, The Underworld, 1931 156
11 William X Stead, King McNally and His Police, 1898 159
3 The Criminal in Popular Culture 164
12 Illustrated American, Review of In the Tenderloin, 1895 164
Appendixes
A Quimbo and George Appo Chronology (1820s-1930) 167
Questions for Consideration 170
Selected Bibliography 172
Index 179
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