Gangsters in the 1920s would wear nice and expensive silk suits, diamond rings, watches and chains, trilby hats wing-tipped shoes. Gangsters eventually would not just control the alcohol business but also drugs, prostitution, and gambling; they would get involved in money laundering and loaning, robbery, and politics.
\Gangsters have been glorified in books, television, and film; in many of the cases, the focus is one gangster in particular. Let's go more in depth of some of the 1920's most prominent gangsters.
Al Capone:
Alphonso Gabriel Capone or Al Capone was born in Brooklyn in 1899, his parents were Italian Immigrants. He moved to Chicago and in 1921 he joined the Five Points Gang. After an assassination attempt on the leader of the gang, Jonny Torrio, Torrio decided to hand the reigns over to Capone. Capone ran brothels, gambling clubs, and racetracks. Capone also started a whiskey trade ring from Chicago to New York. Al Capone was earning about 60 million dollars per year from alcohol alone, which is equivalent to about $746 million today. Al Capone had been arrested many times before for things like murder but he was always acquitted because of a lack or evidence. In 1927 the supreme court ruled that bootleggers had to pay income taxes, which changed things for many, including Capone. In 1931 he was convicted of tax evasion and in 1934 he was transferred from a prison in Atlanta to Alcatraz. While he was in prison his health started to deteriorate because he had contracted syphilis. He was released early because of good behavior and died of cardiac arrest at the age of 48 at his home in Florida in 1947.
Dutch Schultz
Arthur Flegenheimer was born in The Bronx in 1902, the son of Jewish-German Immigrants. At age 27 he was sentenced 17 months in prison for burglary. After he was released he got involved in bootlegging in the 1920's. He built a business of selling alcohol in New York and force rival saloons into buying their alcohol from him. He also got into the illegal gambling business and attracted the attention of the authorities. In1934 he was tried twice for tax evasion but was acquitted. He ordered a hit on the NYspeciala prosecutor but some of his fellow gang members were against killing a public figure so they instead planned a hit on Schultz. In 1935 he and four others were shot at arestaurant in New Jersey and Shultz died the next day.
Lucky Luciano
Born Salvatore Luciano in Sicily Italy in 1897, Lucky Luciano would go on to be the father of modern organized crime. In 1906, he along with his family immigrated to the United States; In school, he would demand the other kids to pay him protection money or he would beat them himself. He befriended other criminals, notably Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Seigel and became affiliated with Joe "the boss" Masseria. In the 1920's he became of the "big six" in bootlegging, he and the other five dominated the alcohol trade on the east coast. He was also involved in gambling operations. Masseria was having troubles with another Mob Boss, Salvatore Maranzano, Luciano helped Maranzano and arranged for Masseria's death on 1931. Luciano would take Masseria's place and become one the leader of one of the 5 families. Maranzano saw Luciano getting too powerful and wanted him out of the picture but Luciano got to him first. Luciano sought to create a national organized crime network in order to manage disputes and establish guidelines. in 1936 he was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison due to extortion and prostitution. He helped the allied cause on WWII because of his connection in Italy and was released and deported to Italy. He traveled to Cuba and ran some operation from there but was deported again to Italy in 1947. He died in Naples in 1962 due to a heart attack.
Other Gangsters:
Joe "The boss" Masseria
Bugsy Seigel
The prohibition of alcohol allowed for the rise of organized crime in the twenties as the mobs sold alcohol without any real taxes and regulations of course the same can be said for the problem of marijuana in the U.S today. Should the U.S legalize all pot to fight organized crime?
ReplyDeleteI like how you explained a lot of the gangsters in the 1920s. I also like how for each gangster you listed you gave a brief description of what they did.
ReplyDeleteThis post was a good read. I liked how you explained each gangster and how they emerged into American society in the first place. It helped me understand gangsters affect on society and how society responded to this change, which we didn't really cover.
ReplyDeleteThis post was a good read. I liked how you explained each gangster and how they emerged into American society in the first place. It helped me understand gangsters affect on society and how society responded to this change, which we didn't really cover.
ReplyDelete