Queen of the Con

The definitive account of audacious con woman Cassie Chadwick, the Carnegie Imposter. Queen of the Con. tells the true story of Cassie Chadwick, a successful swindler and "one of the top 10 imposters of all time," according to Time. magazine. Born Betsy Bigley in 1857 in Canada, she first operated as Madame Devere, a European clairvoyant, and in 1890 was arrested for defrauding a Toledo bank of $20,000. In the mid-1890s, while working as a madam in Cleveland, Cassie met and married a widowed physician with a coveted Euclid Avenue address. At the dawn of the 20th century, Cassie borrowed $2 million (worth roughly $50 million today) throughout northern Ohio, Pittsburgh, New York, and Boston by convincingly posing as the illegitimate daughter of wealthy industrialist-turned-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. When the fraud collapsed in 1904, it was a nationwide sensation. "Yes, I borrowed money in very large amounts," she told reporters, "but what of it. You can't accuse a poor businesswoman of being a criminal, can you. " Carnegie, who never responded to the claim, merely joked that Mrs. Chadwick had demonstrated that his credit was still good. This meticulously researched book is the first full-length account of the notorious career of this fascinating woman, the forerunner to more recent female scammers like Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes or fake heiress Anna Sorokin, the "Soho Grifter. " Crowl's engaging storytelling also leads readers to consider aspects of gender stereotypes, social and economic class structures, and the ways in which we humans can so often be fooled.