Winner, 2025 Missouri Conference on History Book Award
Swindler. Murderer. Scoundrel.
Robert Boatright was one of Middle America’s greatest confidence men. Although little remembered today, his story provides a rare glimpse into America’s criminal past. Working in concert with a local bank and an influential Democratic boss, “this dean of modern confidence men” and his colorful confederacy of con men known as the Buckfoot Gang seemed untouchable. A series of missteps, however, led to a string of court cases across the country that brought Boatright’s own criminal enterprise to an end. And yet, the con continued: Boatright’s successor, John C. Mabray, and his cronies, many of whom had been in the Buckfoot Gang, preyed upon victims across North America in one of the largest midwestern criminal syndicates in history before they were brought to heel.
Like the works of Sinclair Lewis, Boatright’s story exposes a rift in the wholesome midwestern stereotype and furthers our understanding of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American society.
“Men of No Reputationis about the confidence racket in the Ozarks circa 1900, but along the way Kimberly Harper gives a compelling account of local politics, prizefighting, foot races, attitudes toward crime, and much else. I finished reading this wonderfully written book feeling I’d just been educated.”
—Daniel Woodrell,author ofWinter’s Bone
“Harper’s finely tuned study of this successful con-artist gang shows how capitalist dreams blurred into criminal schemes as confidence men, shady bankers, perfidious cops, and crooked politicians turned a bustling Ozarks community into a swindler’s paradise.Men of No Reputationbrings to life a forgotten story of greed and corruption that sounds a timely warning amid today’s cons, big and lÓ%
![Men of No Reputation: Robert Boatright, the Buckfoot Gang, and the Fleecing of Middle America [Paperback]](/itemImage/2/7/5/5/2_7180356.jpg "Men of No Reputation: Robert Boatright, the Buckfoot Gang, and the Fleecing of Middle America [Paperback]")