History is full of tough women that never made it into history books. Some were not only tough, but criminal. In this list of 14 notorious female gangsters, you'll find some you know of, some that were part of famous mobs due to relationships with men, and some that you've never encountered before. Consider Stephanie St. Clair, who build a financial empire in Harlem in the 1920s.
She was called "Queenie" in much of Manhattan, but in her Harlem home she was known only as Madame St. Clair. An immigrant of French and African descent, St. Clair set up her numbers bank ten years after moving to the U.S. and became fiercely protective of her neighborhood. She testified against corrupt cops, getting them fired from the force. Even more impressive, she thwarted the invasion of downtown mobsters once the end of Prohibition sent them uptown in search of new revenue.
With the help of her chief enforcer Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson and an alliance with Lucky Luciano, Madame St. Clair kept the likes of Dutch Schultz out of Harlem. She later gloated when Schultz lay dying from a gunshot wound, sending a note to his hospital bed that read, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." When she retired, St. Clair handed her operation over to Bumpy, who became known as The Harlem Godfather.
Read about other women gangsters at Vintage Everyday. -via the Presurfer