Stephen Birm­ing­ham, who first tack­led the Jew­ish ​“Crowd”— refer­ring to the social­ly-risen Ger­man Jews, here exam­ines the real crowd, the near­ly two mil­lion Russ­ian-Pol­ish Jews who poured into New York City between 1881 – 1915. How did they man­age, ​“with­out mon­ey”? Birmingham’s straight­for­ward descrip­tions name famil­iar per­son­al­i­ties — David Sarnoff, Louis May­er, Sam Gold­wyn, Hele­na Rubin­stein — emi­gres or first gen­er­a­tion Amer­i­cans who amassed wealth and sta­tus — by luck, wil­i­ness, light-fin­gered appro­pri­a­tion, intel­li­gence — fight­ers, who con­tin­ue to retain a benign pub­lic image. Mey­er Lan­sky makes the author’s cut, reflect­ing per­haps, gen­er­al Amer­i­can per­cep­tion of mil­lion-dol­lar Jews. Julia Rich­man sur­pris­es. While Birm­ing­ham men­tions sci­ence and acad­e­mia, the chap­ters lean pri­mar­i­ly on anec­dotes and celebri­ty. Pho­tographs are includ­ed. The pas­sion in this book is the ethos of self-made success.