Contraband: Smuggling and the Birth of the American Century

by Andrew Wender Cohen

How skirting the law once defined America’s relation to the world. In the frigid winter of 1875, Charles L. Lawrence made international headlines when he was arrested for smuggling silk worth $60 million into the United States. An intimate of Boss Tweed, gloriously dubbed “The Prince of Smugglers,” and the head of a network spanning four continents and lasting half a decade, Lawrence scandalized a nation whose founders themselves had once dabbled in contraband. Since the Revolution itself, smuggling had tested the patriotism of the American people. Distrusting foreign goods, Congress instituted high tariffs on most imports. Protecting the nation was the custom house, which waged a “war on smuggling,” inspecting every traveler for illicitly imported silk, opium, tobacco, sugar, diamonds, and art. The Civil War’s blockade of the Confederacy heightened the obsession with contraband, but smuggling entered its prime during the Gilded Age, when characters like assassin Louis Bieral, economist “The Parsee Merchant,” Congressman Ben Butler, and actress Rose Eytinge tempted consumers with illicit foreign luxuries. Only as the United States became a global power with World War I did smuggling lose its scurvy romance. Meticulously researched, Contraband explores the history of smuggling to illuminate the broader history of the United States, its power, its politics, and its culture. 20 illustrations

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History

384 pages, Hardcover

First published August 24, 2015

Reviews

[Mike Brisson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had Professor Cohen for several classes when I was a student at Syracuse, and he was a wonderful professor. So much so that I was excited to finally get his book.

And this book is just like listening to Professor Cohen in class. Wonderful stories about smugglers, smuggling, and why it was important to American politics in the 19th century. The case is clearly made that, as Cohen puts it, smuggling was an extension of the Civil War, which is an incredibly interesting way to frame post civil war politics in the US.

The books is very specific, and can make keeping track of characters somewhat difficult, but it didn't change my enjoyment of the book at. A wonderful by a man who knows his shit.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read focused around the history of contraband goods and smuggling in nineteenth century America.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. Cohen writes in an engaging style about an interesting series of topics of American history. However, while well written, the book does suffer from something of an identity crisis. While nominally about the history of contraband, the book is not very focused, with discussions about smuggling moving into chapters on the nature of American protectionism and tariffs, the rise of American antisemitism and its association with merchants and bankers, the history of American customs officials, American political corruption more widely, as well as interspersed with a biography of the noted smuggler Charley Lawrence who was eventually caught and whose trial was a contemporary press sensation. While all these topics are, in my opinion, interesting, the book is not well constructed. Too many names are thrown out in quick succession which occasionally made things hard to follow as I had to remember who this person was again. There is no explicit introduction or conclusion to the book, though the first and last chapters of the work ("The Prince" and "Transformation") do indirectly lay out the work's thesis.

As other reviewers guessed, the book was indeed an amalgamation of several different projects Cohen was working on which he jammed together into a single volume and which was apparently based on a journal article Cohen wrote in 2010: "Smuggling, Globalization, and America's Outward State, 1870-1909" from The Journal of American History. This also explains why the pre-Civil War chapters of the book appear less connected with the overall events of the work as this was not Cohen's area of initial study. As well, the book likely takes inspiration from Cohen's previous work on the history of crime in 20th century Chicago (The Racketeer's Progress: Chicago and the Struggle for the Modern American Economy, 1900-1940) though I have not read it and am only guessing on this. None of this is inherently bad, I should say, but it does mean that the final product is weaker than it otherwise could be as it lacks focus. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

[Chet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what I was expecting; I found this a tedious and tough read at times. The author throws alot of people and information at the reader - in my opinion, the writer would have better served the reader by concentrating on a specific topic (Smuggling during the Civil War, for example). Very broad topic that is bogged down by too much detail.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating history of smuggling and Customs enforcement in the United States, chock full of colorful characters and juicy stories. So why only 3 stars? Well....it's just not that fun of a read. It is fascinating, for sure, and as well-researched as any history tome out there, but the zing I was expecting based on the jacket reviews just never hit. It reads more like an academic volume published by a university press, which is fine, but I felt that as crazy as some of these people and stories are, the prose was a bit too dull.
Not to say that I don't recommend it, though. I did really enjoy the book overall, and definitely learned something. The historical narrative detailed within has the makings of an excellent Netflix series.

[Daven Prashar-Savoie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun, exciting, informative with lots of history and story telling to bring the world of smugglers right to your minds eye. Really interesting concepts and ideas introduced I had never considered.
Definitely enjoyed!

[Bobby Crim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Incredibly informative look into the history of smuggling in America from the Revolution through to the early 20th Century. So dense with dates, facts and characters that it can be a bit overwhelming, but a fun read if you’re into American history.

[Carly · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look at 19th century smuggling. While an enjoyable read, narrative did jump around a lot making the chapters a little less cohesive than i would like.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I may think differently of this later -- especially if I read it again -- but at the moment, I think it would have been a much better and more intellectually useful book if it had been written for an academic audience, rather than pitched as a cross-over. I think there are some extremely important arguments to be made about the role of tariffs and customs enforcement in the nineteenth century, especially as historians are re-thinking the role of the United States in the world in that century, but this book doesn't quite get there.

It may be a book I tell thesis students who are working with newspapers to look at, since press coverage is the main primary source, and Cohen takes a very different approach to its use than most of what I've seen (especially Ninkovich). On the one hand, using the press reminds us that these stories were big news at the time, even if they haven't become staples of the US history survey (or even the diplomatic history survey). On the other hand, I was generally put off by the book's organization; it jumped around a lot, and the chapters weren't particularly cohesive. I think the source base may have contributed to that, as I suspect there were some gems in the papers that the author couldn't let pass by, even if they weren't well developed.

I think I wanted more in the way of research in government archives, or at least a discussion of how the author chose which sources to use. The State Department records certainly would have much to say about all of this, and I'm not sure those were really consulted. (The brief mentions of the US Consular Service and the inaccuracies contained in those passages don't lead me to believe the author did research in those records.)

[University of Chicago Magazine]

Andrew Wender Cohen, AM'92, PhD'99
Author

From our pages (Fall/15): "Smuggling tested Americans’ patriotism in the 18th and 19th centuries, tempting citizens to dodge protectionist tariffs to procure foreign luxuries. Focusing on the Gilded Age, Syracuse University associate professor Andrew Wender Cohen uses the history of smuggling in America to illuminate larger ideas about US economics, culture, and power."

[Cook Memorial Public Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 2015 staff favorite recommended by Thomas.

Check our catalog: http://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/...