Swindler, Spy, Rebel - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Swindler, Spy, Rebel write by Kathleen R. De Grave. This book was released on 1989. Swindler, Spy, Rebel available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
Swindler, Spy, Rebel
Swindler, Spy, Rebel - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Swindler, Spy, Rebel write by Kathleen De Grave. This book was released on 1995. Swindler, Spy, Rebel available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. "One would not expect a police officer to describe a criminal as "remarkable," "well worth knowing," or "excellent." Yet some did when their quarry was a confidence woman. Blackmailer, swindler, or pickpocket: the confidence woman could take any form." "Regardless of their different motives and tactics, confidence women have much in common, for they have long been misrepresented in American literature and culture. In Swindler, Spy, Rebel: The Confidence Woman in Nineteenth-Century America, Kathleen De Grave redresses the exaggerations and distortions by examining how the line between fact and fiction blurs." "Drawing from a variety of sources, such as memoirs, diaries, detective reports, newspaper accounts, and sociological studies written during the period, De Grave first presents a historical context. By comparing the exploits of such women as "Chicago May" Churchill, "Big Bertha" Heyman, and Ellen Peck to those of fictional women who used the same strategies in noncriminal situations, De Grave broadens the definition of the confidence woman beyond criminality to include adventuresses, soldiers/spies, and "gold diggers." Next, she relates how the confidence woman appears in autobiographies and in fiction. She further expands her argument to include the narrative devices of nineteenth-century women writers who used a kind of confidence game as a way to lure their readers into the text."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Old West Swindlers
Old West Swindlers - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Old West Swindlers write by Laurence J. Yadon. This book was released on 2011-06-23. Old West Swindlers available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. True stories of nineteenth-century crooks, con artists, and quacks—including the man who “sold” the Brooklyn Bridge. Gunslingers and outlaws weren’t the only ones who made the West wild. The nineteenth century was the golden era of riverboat gamblers, crooked railroad contractors, and filthy-rich medical quacks. These crooks made a living deceiving people who took a stranger at face value and left their doors unlocked. Throw in some get-rich-quick schemes and a generous mixture of whiskey and there was never a shortage of suckers. Conman George Parker was able to stay in business for forty years by “selling” public structures such as Madison Square Garden and the Statue of Liberty. He even “sold” the Brooklyn Bridge as often as twice a week. For most, the Salted Gold Mine or the Magic Wallet cons were enough to satisfy their greed. However, the more ambitious grifters tried the Big Store, an illegal underground betting parlor like the one seen in the movie The Sting. With an honest-looking face and a lack of morals, these scammers played a big role in giving the frontier its lawless reputation—and this book tells their stories.
Inventing Loreta Velasquez
Inventing Loreta Velasquez - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Inventing Loreta Velasquez write by William C. Davis. This book was released on 2016-10-24. Inventing Loreta Velasquez available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. She went by many names—Mary Ann Keith, Ann Williams, Lauretta Williams, and more—but history knows her best as Loreta Janeta Velasquez, a woman who claimed to have posed as a man to fight for the Confederacy. In Inventing Loreta Velasquez, acclaimed historian William C. Davis delves into the life of one of America’s early celebrities, peeling back the myths she herself created to reveal a startling and even more implausible reality. This groundbreaking biography reveals a woman quite different from the public persona she promoted. In her bestselling memoir, The Woman in Battle, Velasquez claimed she was an emphatic Confederate patriot, but in fact she never saw combat. Instead, during the war she manufactured bullets for the Union and persuaded her Confederate husband to desert the Army. After the Civil War ended, she wore many masks, masterminding ambitious confidence schemes worth millions, such as creating a phony mining company, conning North Carolina residents to back her financially in a fake immigration scheme, and attracting investors to build a railroad across western Mexico. With various husbands, Velasquez sought her fortune both in the American West and in the Klondike, though her endeavors cost one husband his life. She also became a social reformer advocating on behalf of better prison conditions, the Cuban revolt against Spain, and the plight of Cuban refugees. Further, Velasquez was one of the first women to venture into journalism and presidential politics. Always a sensational press favorite, she displayed throughout her life an uncanny ability to manipulate popular media and to benefit from her fame in a way that prefigured celebrities of our own time, including using her testimony in a Congressional inquiry about Civil War counterfeiting as a means of promoting her latest business ventures. So little has been known of Velasquez’s real life that some postmodern scholars have glorified her as a “woman warrior” and used her as an example in cross-gender issues and arguments concerning Hispanic nationalism. Davis firmly refutes these notions by bringing the historical Velasquez to the surface. The genuine story of Velasquez’s life is far more interesting than misguided interpretations and her own fanciful inventions.
Look Away!
Look Away! - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Look Away! write by Jon Smith. This book was released on 2004-07-21. Look Away! available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. DIVExamines what happens to our paradigms of the American south if we understand the "south" hemispherically, to include Latin America and the Caribbean./div
