Madame Queen
The Life and Crimes of Harlem’s Underground Racketeer, Stephanie St. Clair
-
-
5.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $15.99
Publisher Description
The astonishing little-known history of Harlem racketeer Madame Stephanie St. Clair, one of the only female crime bosses and a Black, self-made businesswoman in early twentieth-century New York.
In her heyday, Stephanie St. Clair went by many names, but one was best known by all: Madame Queen. The undeniable queen of the Harlem numbers game, St. Clair redefined what it meant to be a woman of means. After immigrating to America from the West Indies, St. Clair would go on to manage one of the largest policy banks in all of Harlem by 1923. She knew the power of reputation, and even though her business was illegal gambling, she ran it like any other respectable entrepreneur. Because first and foremost, Madame Queen was a lady.
But that didn’t stop her from doing what needed to be done to survive. St. Clair learned how to navigate the complex male-dominated world of crime syndicates, all at a time when Tammany Hall and mafia groups like the Combination were trying to rule New York. With her tenacity and intellectual prowess, she never backed down. Madame Queen was a complicated figure, but she prioritized the people of Harlem above all else, investing her wealth back into the neighborhood and speaking out against police corruption and racial discrimination.
St. Clair was a trailblazer, unafraid to challenge societal norms. But for far too long she’s been a footnote in more infamous characters’ stories, like Bumpy Johnson, Dutch Schultz and Lucky Luciano. Now, in this masterful portrayal of a woman who defied the odds at all costs, she finally gets her due.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this evocative account, true crime writer McBrayer (America's First Female Serial Killer) artfully fills in the gaps in the record of the life of Stephanie St. Clair, a notorious racketeer in 1920s and '30s Harlem. Born in the West Indies in the late 1880s, St. Clair traveled to New York City alone at age 13 and used her immense talent for numbers and probabilities to build a highly respected yet illegal lottery. Details of her life are scant, as St. Clair preferred to avoid the public eye—that is, until a law enforcement plot to frame her drove her to purchase ad space in a local paper to call out police corruption. The positive response from Harlemites led to St. Clair regularly making her public comments via advertisement, raising her profile as a community leader. The author uses the sparse facts of her subject's life as the basis for a dramatic retelling, replete with recreated dialogue, period-appropriate details, and speculation on St. Clair's motivations. (Justifying her creative approach, McBrayer says, "Stephanie made her living off probabilities, so I feel comfortable taking this gamble.") In McBrayer's telling, St. Clair was a remarkably bright, determined, and scrupulous businesswoman whose under-the-table dealings set her on a collision course with a cast of colorful figures. The result is a vivid reanimation of 20th-century Harlem and an immersive organized crime saga.
