Cassie Chadwick: The Woman Who Conned as Carnegie's Heir

Elizabeth Bigley, better known as Cassie Chadwick, convinced the American banking establishment that she was Andrew Carnegie's secret illegitimate daughter, borrowing sums worth tens of millions today.This episode traces her evolution from a rural Canadian forger to the Queen of Ohio, exploiting Gilded Age greed and Victorian taboos until her scheme collapsed and ruined a bank.Early forgeries and an insanity defense exploiting gender stereotypesReinventing herself as the clairvoyant Madame Lydia DeVereThe staged dropped two million dollar Carnegie promissory noteRunning a bank-to-bank scheme that funded lavish spendingThe 1904 lawsuit and Oberlin bank collapse that exposed her