ABC #049: White Collar Crime - J. Edward Addicks, Samuel Ashbridge, and Joseph Miller Huston

2023-04-01

J. Edward "Gas" Addicks made his fortune in the gas industry, but decided he wanted to be a United States Senator; he spent much of his wealth in a fruitless attempt at achieving his goal. Samuel "Stars and Stripes" Ashbridge would give a patriotic speech at the drop of a hat and was elected Philadelphia’s mayor in 1899; he left office four years later a rich man. Fellow tour guide and Philadelphia author and historian Tom Keels tells you his story. Joseph Miller Huston was an up-a...

J. Edward "Gas" Addicks made his fortune in the gas industry, but decided he wanted to be a United States Senator; he spent much of his wealth in a fruitless attempt at achieving his goal.

Samuel "Stars and Stripes" Ashbridge would give a patriotic speech at the drop of a hat and was elected Philadelphia’s mayor in 1899; he left office four years later a rich man. Fellow tour guide and Philadelphia author and historian Tom Keels tells you his story.

Joseph Miller Huston was an up-and-coming architect who got the plum job of designing Pennsylvania’s State Capitol; instead of leading him to even bigger jobs, it became his professional downfall.

These three men interred at Laurel Hill are remembered today for their graft and dishonesty in a city that muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens called "corrupt but content." Learn about their crimes and punishments.

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