Greed in the Gilded Age Audiobook By William Elliott Hazelgrove cover art

Greed in the Gilded Age

The Brilliant Con of Cassie Chadwick

Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for $0.00
Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.

Greed in the Gilded Age

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove
Narrated by: Cindy Piller
Try for $0.00

$0.00/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $20.28

Buy for $20.28

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

Greed in the Gilded Age is a Gatsby-esque tale of mystery, money, sex, and scandal.

"Millionaire" had just entered the American lexicon and Cassie Chadwick was front page news, becoming a media sensation before mass media, even eclipsing President Roosevelt’s inauguration. Using these newspaper articles, Hazelgrove tells the story of one of the greatest cons in American history.

Combining the sexuality and helplessness her gender implied, Chadwick conned at least 2 million dollars, equivalent to about 60 million today, simply by claiming to be the illegitimate daughter and heir of steel titan, Andrew Carnegie. Playing to their greed, she was able to convince highly educated financiers to loan hundreds of thousands of dollars, on nothing more than a rumor and her word.

She was a product of her time and painting her as a criminal is only one way to look at it. Those times rewarded someone who was smart, inventive, bold, and aggressive. She was able to break through boundaries of class, education, and gender.

©2022 William Elliott Hazelgrove (P)2022 Rowman & Littlefield
Con Artists, Hoaxes & Deceptions True Crime
All stars
Most relevant  
(as posted in Good reads.)
It was a great book in that painting a picture of unruled and totally unrestricted banking in the late 19th century and early 1900s. It took this case to remind us of the possibilities of people overall to take advantage of trust and individual wants.
My main complaint about the book overall is that the timeline is far from linear, and very confusing. I understand that doing a straight line makes the whole story lose some of its punch and overall impact, but it also clears the whole thing up more and makes it less confusing.
In total, however, I enjoyed it and learned a lot from it. I have been totally unaware of what was possible! And I learned something about Andrew Carnegie, as well (overall a jerk but reality minded)

People have always taken advantage of weaknesses

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.