Girl Gangsters – Page 21 – The Pen Hustle With Brandy Cavalli

Girl Gangsters of 19th Century Manhattan

A look into female gang members of the 19th century & how they dominated in the underworld during a time when women were considered inferior to men.

Ephemeral New York

When you think of the criminal gangs of New York in the 1800s, ruthless young men probably come to mind.

But these gangs had female members as well, some of whom were notorious fighters.

There was Hell-Cat Maggie, a member of the Irish-American Dead Rabbits in the 1850s. Her home base was the Five Points slum, near today’s City Hall. Supposedly her teeth were filed into sharp points and she clawed rivals with brass fingernails.

Another was Sadie Farrell, aka Sadie the Goat. Reportedly she robbed East Siders by first head-butting them in the stomach. In the 1860s she joined the Charlton Street Gang, river pirates on the West Side.

Ida Burger, called Ida the Goose, was a prostitute and Lady Gopher, part of the Gophers of Hell’s Kitchen. In the 1910s she was lured away to the Lower East Side’s Eastman Gang, led by Monk Eastman, but eventually went…

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FIND A GRAVE: Stephanie “Madame Queen” St. Clair

Birth:

1886, Martinique

Death:

1969
Harlem
New York County (Manhattan)
New York, USA

Madame Queen was a female gang leader who ran numerous criminal enterprises in Harlem, New York during the 1920’s & 30’s. Born in Martinique, an island in the East Caribbean in 1886, she arrived in the United States via Marseilles, France in 1912. Along with her chief enforcer Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson, she took on Dutch Schultz for control of the Harlem numbers racket. When Shultz was shot & mortally wounded in 1935, Madame Queen sent a telegram to his hospital bed which read, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” The incident made headlines across the nation. By the 1940s, “Bumpy” Johnson had took control in Harlem and St. Clair became less involved in the numbers game. She died quietly in Harlem in 1969. She was portrayed by Novella Nelson in the 1984 film “Cotton Club” & by Cicely Tyson in the 1997 film “Hoodlum”. (bio by: Terrance Crooms)

Burial: Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum Manhattan New York County (Manhattan) New York, USA
Maintained by: Find A Grave Originally Created by: Terrance Crooms Record added: Aug 26, 2012 Find A Grave Memorial# 96066386