Ponzi's Scheme (42 page)

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, Frederick Lewis.
Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s.
New York: Harper & Row, 1931.

Andros, Howard S.
Buildings and Landmarks of Old Boston: A Guide to the Colonial, Provincial, Federal, and Greek Revival Periods, 1630–1850.
Lebanon, N.H.: University Press of New England, 2001.

Barron, Clarence W.
They Told Barron: Conversations and Revelations of an American Pepys in Wall Street.
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1930.

Beatty, Jack.
The Rascal King: The Life and Times of James Michael Curley (1874–1958).
New York: Perseus Publishing, 1992.

Bulgatz, Joseph.
Ponzi Schemes, Invaders from Mars and More: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
New York: Three Rivers Press, 1992.

Chester, George Randolph.
Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford: The Cheerful Account of the Rise and Fall of an American Business Buccaneer.
New York: Curtis Publishing Company, 1907.

Churchill, Allen.
Park Row.
New York: Greenwood Publishing, 1973.

Cooper, John Milton.
Pivotal Decades: The United States, 1900–1920.
Reprint, New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1992.

Dunn, Donald.
Ponzi: The Boston Swindler.
New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975.

Galbraith, John Kenneth.
The Great Crash, 1929.
Reprint, New York: Mariner Books, 1997.

Goodwin, Doris Kearns.
The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989.

Handlin, Oscar.
Boston's Immigrants, 1790–1880: A Study in Acculturation.
Boston: Harvard University Press, 1991.

Kenny, Herbert.
Newspaper Row: Journalism in the Pre-Television Era.
Boston: Globe Pequot Press, 1987.

Kindleberger, Charles P.
Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises.
4th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001.

Kruh, David S.
Always Something Doing: A History of Boston's Infamous Scollay Square.
New York: Faber & Faber, 1990.

Kyvig, David E.
Daily Life in the United States, 1920–1939: Decades of Promise and Pain.
Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002.

Mackay, Charles.
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
Reprint, New York: Three Rivers Press, 1995.

Maurer, David W.
The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man.
New York: Anchor Books, 1999.

Murray, Robert K.
Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919–1920.
New York: McGraw-Hill, 1955.

Nash, Robert Jay.
Hustlers and Con Men.
New York: M. Evans and Company, Inc., 1976.

O'Connor, Thomas H.
Bibles, Brahmins, and Bosses: A Short History of Boston.
Boston: Boston Public Library, 1991.

———.
The Boston Irish: A Political History.
Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1995.

———.
The Hub: Past and Present.
Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2001.

Olian, JoAnne.
Everyday Fashions 1909–1920.
Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 1995.

Ponzi, Charles.
The Rise of Mr. Ponzi.
1937. Reprint, Naples, Fla.: Inkwell Publishers, 2001.

Pringle, Henry F.
The Life and Times of William Howard Taft: A Biography.
New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1939.

Puleo, Stephen.
Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919.
Boston: Beacon Press, 2003.

Rayner, Richard.
Drake's Fortune: The Fabulous True Story of the World's Greatest Confidence Artist.
New York: Doubleday, 2002.

Russell, Francis.
A City in Terror: 1919, the Boston Police Strike.
New York: Viking Press, 1975.

———.
The Knave of Boston: And Other Ambiguous Massachusetts Characters.
Boston: Quinlan Press, 1987.

Sobel, Robert.
The Great Bull Market: Wall Street in the 1920s.
New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1968.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Heartfelt thanks to the Gnecco family, especially John and Betty Gnecco, William and Florence Gnecco Hall, and Mary Gnecco Treen, for sharing reminiscences and mementos of their great-aunt Rose Gnecco Ponzi Ebner. I am especially grateful to them for providing me with the letters Ponzi sent Rose during their marriage and after. I'm grateful also to Philip Treen for sharing his theories about his great-great uncle Ponzi.

I owe equal appreciation to Mary M. Grozier for trusting me with her memories and photographs of her father, Richard. Thanks also to Elizabeth and Damian Grozier.

I received generous support and genuine fellowship at the Batten Institute at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia. Special thanks to Bob Bruner and Debbie Fisher. Greg Fairchild sponsored me for the fellowship, and for that and so many other things I thank him, Tierney Temple-Fairchild, and their entire family.

My agent and friend Richard Abate made this book possible, despite the fact that he suspects that a distant relative of his lost money with Ponzi. Thanks to Kate Lee for believing in this idea and saying so. My editor, Jonathan Karp, has the rare gift of knowing precisely what a writer needs to achieve his dreams. He provides it with grace, charm, and a steady hand. I am grateful to the entire Random House team, notably Jonathan Jao, Dennis Ambrose, and Bonnie Thompson.

In Ponzi's hometown of Lugo, Italy, I received invaluable help from Rosanna Rava, who oversees registry documents in city hall. When we met, Rosanna was wearing a T-shirt that said “Boston Celtics,” which I interpreted as a grand omen. “Boston! That's where I'm from,” I said. Confusion swept across her face; Rosanna's English was as sparse as my Italian. When I looked more closely, I noticed that below the basketball team's name was a sketch of a baseball player in midswing, and below that were the meaningless words “Spring Trophy.” Nevertheless, she patiently listened as I explained Ponzi's scheme in pidgin Italian. “Like Al Capone?” she asked. “Not really,” I said. “Capone took lives. Ponzi took money.” Rosanna smiled.
“Ah. Bene.”
Then she unearthed his birth record and census documents.

Genealogist Carolyn Ugolini traced Ponzi's family history and led me to Rosanna. I am grateful for her creativity, persistence, and encouragement.

My friend and former professor Wilbur Doctor was among the journalists whom the
Boston Post
owed money when it failed a half century ago. Now I owe him, too, for the care he took in reading and improving this manuscript. I benefited as well from the insights and efforts of my friends and longtime colleagues Dick Lehr and Gerry O'Neill.

Ofer Gneezy and Christine McLaughlin graciously allowed me to traipse through their beautiful home to get a feel for what it was like when it belonged to Ponzi.

Henry Scannell of the Boston Public Library Microtext Department is a living treasure within a civic treasure. Thanks also to Aaron Schmidt of the library's Print Department; research librarian Frank Wilmot of the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration; John Beck of the Albin O. Kuhn Library at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; archivists Edouard Desrochers and Shelley Bronk of Phillips Exeter Academy; Michael Moore of the National Archives and Records Administration; Massachusetts judicial archivist Elizabeth Bouvier; Lisa Tuite of the
Boston Globe
library; John Cronin of the
Boston Herald
library; Evan Ide, curator of the Larz Anderson Auto Museum; Nancy Richard of the Boston Historical Society; Jim Gallagher of the Beebe Library at Boston University; and Millie Teixiera, secretary and resident historian at Saint Anthony's Church in Somerville. Mark Mathosian deserves credit for rescuing Ponzi's autobiography.

Steve Bailey of the
Boston Globe
made me a banking reporter despite my unbalanced checkbook, a job that eventually set the stage for me to tackle this subject. For their enduring support, special thanks to Allan Zuckoff, Jeff Feigelson, Brian McGrory, Naftali Bendavid, Joann Muller, Chris Callahan, Ben Bradlee Jr., Wil Haygood, Jim and Deb Kreiter, Paul Kreiter, Jo Kreiter, Reita Ennis, Helene Atwan, Joe Kahn, Kate Shaplen, Dan Field, Collen Granahan, Ruth and Bill Weinstein, Jeff Struzenski, Amy Axelrod, Brooke and Eric Meltzer, and all my colleagues, students, and friends at Boston University.

My mother, Gerry Zuckoff, was a bookkeeper, and I suspect she would have seen the flaws in Ponzi's plan her first day on the job. This book is dedicated to my father, Sid Zuckoff, who taught me to appreciate history and to value ideas and ideals. My daughters, Isabel and Eve, kept me happy and grounded in the present when my mind wandered to the past. My wife, Suzanne, is my Rose.

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

MITCHELL ZUCKOFF
is a professor of journalism at Boston University. He is co-author of
Judgment Ridge,
which was a finalist for the Edgar Award, and author of
Choosing Naia,
a
Boston Globe
bestseller and winner of the Christopher Award. As a reporter with
The Boston Globe,
he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and winner of numerous national honors, including the 2000 Distinguished Writing Award from the American Society of Newspaper Editors. He lives outside Boston with his wife and two daughters.

Also by Mitchell Zuckoff

J
UDGMENT
R
IDGE:
T
HE
T
RUE
S
TORY
B
EHIND THE
D
ARTMOUTH
M
URDERS
with Dick Lehr

C
HOOSING
N
AIA:
A F
AMILY'S
J
OURNEY

Copyright © 2005 by Mitchell Zuckoff

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

R
ANDOM
H
OUSE
and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

L
IBRARY OF
C
ONGRESS
C
ATALOGING-IN-
P
UBLICATION
D
ATA

Zuckoff, Mitchell
                  Ponzi's scheme: the true story of a financial legend / Mitchell Zuckoff.
                                    p. cm.
                  Includes index.
                  1. Ponzi, Charles. 2. Swindlers and swindling—Biography. 3. Swindlers and swindling—United States—Biography. 4. Ponzi schemes—United States—History. 5. Commercial crimes—United States—Case studies. I. Title.

HV 6692.P66Z83 2005                  364.16'3—dc22                  [B]                  2004046770

Random House website address:
www.atrandom.com

eISBN: 978-1-58836-448-7

v3.0