Cover: The Urban Underworld in Late Nineteenth-Century New York: The Autobiography of George Appo, 1st Edition by Timothy Gilfoyle

The Urban Underworld in Late Nineteenth-Century New York: The Autobiography of George Appo

With Related DocumentsFirst Edition ©2013 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 books introduction and supporting documents, whic...
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ISBN:9780312607623

Cover: The Urban Underworld in Late Nineteenth-Century New York: The Autobiography of George Appo, 1st Edition 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 books introduction and supporting documents, which include investigative reports and descriptions of Appo and his world, connect Appos 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 nations criminal subculture. Document headnotes, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography offer additional pedagogical support.

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New to This Edition

"Framed around the autobiography of a New York City pickpocket and confidence man, this volume explores the rapidly changing criminal underworld of the late nineteenth century. It provides engaging, colorful, and raw portraits of criminal networks, the underground economy, searing poverty, corrupt, brutal cops, and sadistic prison guards. Students will be drawn into the powerful narrative of George Appos life and in the process gain insight into the nature of crime and punishment in nineteeth-century America."
— Jeffrey S. Adler, University of Florida
 
"Whether one regards George Appo as a victim of poverty and limited opportunities or as a charming socio-path, students of American history, criminology, law, and even psychology will find themselves engaged in Gilfoyles rendering of Appo and his world of good fellows."
— Kenneth J. Heineman, Angelo State University

"A first-rate introduction to the history of crime and policing and how historians pull such histories together."
— Alan Lessoff, Illinois State University

"A fascinating and insightful classroom tool. Professor Gilfoyle has opened a unique window to the past that students will find engrossing."
—Andrew E. Kersten, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

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Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

PART ONE. Introduction: Cultures of Crime

     Who was George Appo?

     The Rise of the Pickpocket

     Drugs and Crime

     Green Goods

     Policing the Industrial City

     Politics and Crime

     The Penitentiary

     Good Fellows

     Progressive Criminology

     The Criminal Memoir

     Appo Transformed

     Appo’s Memory

     Conclusion

PART TWO. The Document: The Autobiography of George Appo

Childhood

The Penitentiary

Jack Collins, Tom Lee, and Fred Crage

Sing Sing Again

Philadelphia

Thomas Wilson

Green Goods

Poughkeepsie

Clinton Again

Stealing Guys

The Lexow Committee

In the Tenderloin

Violence

Matteawan

Reform

Good Fellows

Reflections

PART THREE. Related Documents

George Appo in His Words and Others

1. Louis Beck, New York’s Chinatown (1898)

2. George Appo, Letter to Gov. Theodore Roosevelt of New York, May 9, 1899

3. Dr. Henry E. Allison, Report on George Appo, 1899

4. Lewis Lawes, excerpt from Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing (1932)

5. Bronx Home News, Obituary on George Appo, June 15, 1930

Subcultures of Crime

6. George W. Matsell, Vocabulum; or, The Rogue’s Lexicon (1859)

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)

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)

9. Thomas Byrnes, "Methods of Professional Criminals of America," in Professional Criminals of America (1886)

10. Lincoln Steffens, "The Underworld" in The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens (1931)

11. William T. Stead, "King McNally and His Police," in Satan’s Invisible World Displayed, or, Despairing Democracy: A Study of Greater New York (1898)

The Criminal in Popular Culture

12. Review of In the Tenderloin in The Illustrated American (1895)

Appendixes

     A George Appo Chronology (1856-1930)

     Questions for Consideration

     Selected Bibliography

Index

Headshot of Timothy Gilfoyle

Timothy Gilfoyle

Timothy J. Gilfoyle (Ph.D. Columbia University) is professor of history at Loyola University Chicago. Dr. Gilfoyles research and teaching focuses on American urban and social history. His books include A Pickpockets Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth Century New York; Millennium Park:Creating a Chicago Landmark; and City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790-1920. He is also the co-author with Patricia Cline Cohen and Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz The Flash Press: Sporting Mens Weeklies in the 1840s. Gilfoyle has been a Minow Family Foundation Fellow, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow, a senior fellow at the Smithsonian Institutions Museum of American History, and an N.E.H./Lloyd Lewis Fellow at the Newberry Library in Chicago.