Swindling

The World-Renowned Major Ross: Soap Man! [Lowell, Mass.]: “Vox Populi” Print, ca. 1856.

G. G. Evans. G. G. Evans’ Original Gift Book Store. [Philadelphia, 1861?]. McAllister Collection.

Grand Sale of Watches Jewelry and Photograph Albums. [Philadelphia], 1864.

“Grand gift distributions” and “prize packages” awarded cash and gifts to people who purchased tickets through the mail, attended special theatrical performances, or purchased products. Similar to lotteries (some charged they were too similar), gift distributions promised people would qualify to receive amounts of money and luxurious goods that were otherwise out of their reach.

Using a variety of techniques, prize package operators were swindlers by degrees. Major Ross induced customers to buy more bars of soap than they needed by entering into drawings for everything from handkerchiefs and gold watches to tracts of land. The fine print, however, reveals that people had only a one-in-20,000 chance of winning the grand prize – a house – if it existed at all.

Gift book enterprises organized the most “honest” give-aways. In exchange for purchasing a minimum number of books, buyers were entitled to receive a randomly-chosen gift. Gift book companies emphasized the gentility of their stores and the luxuriousness of their gifts. In reality, however, the books were typically overruns that publishers could not sell otherwise; similarly, the gifts were often damaged or inferior consumer goods that also could not find a market.

The Philadelphia firm Benit & Kirke ran another common scheme, the prize drawing. Advertised in newspapers around the country, prize drawings encouraged people to send money, usually $1.00 each, to purchase sealed envelopes containing slips on which prizes were printed, including cash and desirable consumer goods. Prize drawings rarely actually took place, their organizers fleeing to another town once they had collected their money. Prize drawing swindlers were engaging in an early and successful form of mail fraud, using the distance and anonymity of the mails to their advantage. They often recruited local postmasters who received a handsome cut in return for ignoring the suspicious number of letters – sometimes thousands of envelopes – that would flood the post office filled with dollar bills.