Green’s Dictionary of Slang

an influential, powerful person, thus ntesified as gantse (i.e. major/big) macher.

1914		M. Glass Abe and Mawruss 175: Pretty soon he is buying more and more goods till he gets to be a big macher like Felix Geigermann.
1928		A. Burstein Ghetto Messenger 301: [Gloss.] Macher, important personage.
1930		C. Miller ‘Furniture Lingo’ AS VI:2 126: The ‘wise guy’ of popular slang becomes [...] Macher.
1976		J. Rosenthal Bar Mitzvah Boy Scene 69: The big man. The ganzy macher. Shouting and bawling!
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 256: He’s a headline grabber, he’s a big mocher, face it: he’s a mensch.
1991		P. Blauner Slow Motion Riot 21: He used to be one of the big power brokers in the city, a gontser macher as they used to say around my family.
2004		J. Ellroy ‘Jungletown Jihad’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 366: Her old man’s a macher at Paramount and we took her for forty K.
2017		NYRB 9 Mar. 🌐 Silverstein [...] had been considered [...] something of a bottom-fisher among the big deal machers of the New York real estate establishment.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 5: Four showbiz machers in worse shape than me.