Men of No Reputation: Robert Boatright, the Buckfoot Gang, and the Fleecing of Middle America
Men of No Reputation is the first account to explore the life of Robert Boatright, one of Middle America's most gifted, but forgotten, confidence men. Boatright's story provides a rare window into the secret world of Missouri's criminal past, which influenced the methods of confidence men across the country.
Boatright took the preexisting big-store confidence scheme and perfected it. With the assistance of a talented coterie of confederates known as the Buckfoot Gang, this "dean of modern confidence men" fleeced the gentry of the Midwest on fixed athletic contests in the turn-of-the-century Ozarks. Working in concert with a local bank and an influential Democratic boss, Boatright seemed untouchable. A series of missteps, however, led to a string of court cases across the country that brought his criminal enterprise to an end. And yet, the con continued. Boatright's successor, John C. Mabray, and his cronies, many of whom had been in the Buckfoot Gang, preyed upon victims across North America in one of the largest Midwestern criminal syndicates in history before they were brought to heel. Like the works of Sinclair Lewis, Boatright's story exposes a rift in the wholesome Midwestern stereotype and furthers our understanding of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American society.Earn by promoting books
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"Men of No Reputation is about the confidence racket in the Ozarks circa 1900, but along the way Kimberly Harper gives a compelling account of local politics, prizefighting, foot races, attitudes toward crime, and much else. I finished reading this wonderfully written book feeling I'd just been educated."
--Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter's Bone
"Harper's finely tuned study of this successful con-artist gang shows how capitalist dreams blurred into criminal schemes as confidence men, shady bankers, perfidious cops, and crooked politicians turned a bustling Ozarks community into a swindler's paradise. Men of No Reputation brings to life a forgotten story of greed and corruption that sounds a timely warning amid today's cons, big and small. For readers interested in charlatans and their marks, this book is a sure bet."
--Jarod Roll, author of Poor Man's Fortune: White Working-Class Conservativism in American Metal Mining, 1850-1950
"Masterfully woven and grounded in meticulous use of newspapers and court records, Men of No Reputation is a solid, flesh-on-the-bones contribution to the literature on American confidence men. Harper leaves no stone unturned as she tracks down a sophisticated, understudied gang of Ozark swindlers who fleeced high-stakes suckers in rigged foot races and prizefights at the turn of the twentieth century. A further reminder of the American culture of greed and crime in an age of flimflam and humbug."
--Gregg Andrews, author of Shantyboats and Roustabouts: The River Poor of St. Louis, 1875-1930
"An original work fully supported by sound scholarship, Men of No Reputation will prove indispensable to regional historians, legal scholars, and afficionados of the American underworld."
--Eric B. Easton, author of The Life and Crimes of Jared Flagg: Adventures of a Gilded Age Huckster, Swindler, and Pimp
"Harper explains, with examples pulled from news reports and court records, precisely how the con was managed with the help of a friendly bank as well as police and politicians who were willing to look the other way. The law catches up with most of the Boatright Gang in the end, and Harper does an admirable job following the thread of each core member's biography while also proving these were not suave, honorable thieves as portrayed in films like Ocean's Eleven but rather hardened criminals capable of murder or worse. Men of No Reputation takes a magnifying glass to a little-understood underworld in a region that is too often ignored. It seems aimed to please both the amateur history buff as well as the academic, and one could easily see it becoming a Martin Scorsese film in the not-too-distant future."
--Evan Alan Wood, Missouri Life, July 2024
