List of contents

List of Illustrations ix

Acknowledgments xi

Part I:

Duplicity and the Evolution of American Capitalism

Chapter One: The Enduring Dilemmas of Antifraud

Regulation 3

Chapter Two: The Shape-Shifting, Never-Changing

World of Fraud 14

Part II:

A Nineteenth-Century World of Caveat Emptor (1810s to 1880s)

Chapter Three: The Porousness of the Law 43

Chapter Four: Channels of Exposure 75

Part III:

Professionalization, Moralism, and the Elite Assault

on Deception (1860s to 1930s)

Chapter Five: The Beginnings of a Modern Administrative

State 107

Chapter Six: Innovation, Moral Economy, and the

Postmaster General's Peace 143

Chapter Seven: The Businessmen's War to End All Fraud 174

Chapter Eight: Quandaries of Procedural Justice 208

Part IV:

The Call for Investor and Consumer Protection

(1930s to 1970s)

Chapter Nine: Moving toward Caveat Venditor 245

viii

Contents

Chapter Ten: Consumerism and the Reorientation of

Antifraud Policy 285

Chapter Eleven: The Promise and Limits of the

Antifraud State 316

Part V:

The Market Strikes Back (1970s to 2010s)

Chapter Twelve: Neoliberalism and the Rediscovery of

Business Fraud 353

List OfAbbreviations 385

Notes 387

Index 471

IlluMtrationM

Figures

Figure 1.1 “FRAUDULENT” stamp on a 1906 letter 4

Figure 2.1: Smash, Bang & Co., Harper’s Weekly, May 24, 1884 15

Figure 2.2: The antebellum “Verdant Countryman” enticed by the

bargain 25

Figure 2.3: Front page of Baxter & Co. circular, circa 1878 28

Figure 2.4: Segment of Dr.

Antonio Express 32

Figure 4.1: Advertisement in Gleanings in Bee Culture 85

Figure 5.1: The Post Office Department as “guardian angel” to the

“easy” 138

Figure 7.1: The popularization of fraud cost estimates in the 1920s 177

Figure 7.2: A typical BBB billboard, St. Louis, 1926 185

Figure 7.3: An NACM investigator compares photographs 191

Figure 7.4: Dr. NACM takes on the credit crook 193

Figure 7.5: NACM as the national vindicator of the law 195

Figure 7.6: Attendees at a 1929 BBB Conference in San Diego 196

Figure 7.7: A portrayal of deterrence resulting from effective fraud

enforcement 203

Figure 8.1: The BBB as good friend of the Establishment 225

Figure 8.2: The BBB as a two-armed poisonous snake 227

Figure 9.1: A BBB poster beseeching investors to remain vigilant in

the face of fraud 259

Figure 9.2: A skeptical Mrs. Consumer in a 1950s BBB cartoon 260

Figure 9.3: A Post Office “Wanted” poster 271

Figure 10.1: Poster from the NY Bureau of Consumer Frauds and

Protection, 1966 306

Figure 11.1: CEPA activists prepare a picket sign, August 1976 320

Figure 11.2: Houston Sheriff Marvin Zindler in his office 322

Table

Table 8.1: Criminal mail fraud cases handled by the Post Office

Department 221