Fernando Wood was one of the most controversial figures of nineteenth-century America. His fellow New Yorkers either respected or despised him, depending whether they considered his policies beneficial or harmful to their interests. The character revealed herein possessed some admirable qualities; high intelligence, sharp analytic skills, great capacity for hard work, and a clear talent to set his executive agenda. But equally evident are Wood's less admirable qualities; ruthless business practices, shoddy personal ethics, corrupt politics, dictatorial tendencies. What emerges is the story of a very complex person: a successful businessman, consummate politician, resourceful three-time may of New York City, and nine-term congressman, beneath which lurked mean and self-destructive tendencies. Take as a whole, Wood's colorful career was a unique microcosm of American history both during and after his lifetime. His business achievements mirrored popular beliefs in upward mobility. And Wood's mayoralty held a promise of revitalizing municipal government, giving it a social conscience, and setting new standards for the future. Despite his shortcomings, Fernando Wood played a major but unappreciated role in the urban and political history of time.

When Edwin Sutherland introduced the concept of white-collar crime, he referred to the respectable businessmen of his day who had, in the course of their occupations, violated the law whenever it was advantageous to do so. Yet since the founding of the American Republic, numerous otherwise respectable individuals had been involved in white-collar criminality. Using organized smuggling as an exemplar, this narrative history of American smuggling establishes that white-collar crime has always been an integral part of American history when conditions were favorable to violating the law. This dark side of the American Dream originally exposed itself in colonial times with elite merchants of communities such as Boston trafficking contraband into the colonies. It again came to the forefront during the Embargo of 1809 and continued through the War of 1812, the Civil War, nineteenth century filibustering, the Mexican Revolution and Prohibition. The author also shows that the years of illegal opium trade with China by American merchants served as precursor to the later smuggling of opium into the United States. The author confirms that each period of smuggling was a link in the continuing chain of white-collar crime in the 150 years prior to Sutherland’s assertion of corporate criminality.