“New York Undercover is a smart, surprising, and important book. With the keen intelligence and sharp wit of a good investigator, Jennifer Fronc unearths the roots of our culture of surveillance by taking us back to New York at the start of the twentieth century and following the undercover agents who followed gamblers, prostitutes, anarchists, immigrants, children, and men and women just out for a good time.”

Ann Fabian, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

“Jennifer Fronc ventures into the hitherto unknown world of private surveillance in the Progressive Era, when scores of do-gooders donned disguises and went undercover in order to document the nefarious activities of the other half. Fronc tracks these investigators and discovers that they created social knowledge that equated racial mixing, working class women’s sexuality, immigrant neighborhoods, and radical politics with social disorder, and that their private policing formed the basis for the development of federal surveillance. An illuminating book with great relevance for twentieth- and twenty-first-century history.”

Nan Enstad, University of Wisconsin–Madison

“This impressively researched book makes an important contribution to a wide range of central themes in modern American history, including the growth of state power and the policing of class, race, and gender relations. In this age of terrorism, ‘homeland security’ initiatives, the expanded use of wiretapping and other forms of surveillance, and a new debate about the relationship between civil liberties and governmental authority, New York Undercover is also timely.”

Jeffrey Adler, University of Florida