Al+Capone

Al Capone



Al Capone is Americas best known gangster and the single greatest symbol of the collapse of law and order in the prohibition era. He was the son of Italian immigrants and his original birth name was Alphonse Capone h e was the fourth of nine children. He originally began his career in Brooklyn but moved to Chicago becoming the boss of the Criminal organization. Capone was a high business leader in Chicago through bootlegging, and when prohibition came around his business took off selling the alcohol in underground speakeasies.

=From the start=

Capone grew up in a rough neighbor hood and was part of two gangs "the Rippers" and "the Forty Thieves" he was very smart but quit school in sixth grade at the age of fourteen. He worked odd jobs like at the candy store, the bowling alley, and the book binary. He later joined another gang called "the Five Points" and worked at a inn for the mob boss named Yale.



While he was working there he got in a fight with a woman's brother who cut his face giving Capone the nickname "Scarface" which he disliked very much. In 1918 he met a Irish girl named Mary "Mae" Coughlin at a dance. On December 4, 1918, Mae gave birth to their son, Albert "Sonny" Francis, later on that year they got married on December 30th.

In about the 1920s Capone left and headed for Chicago looking for a fresh start working with crime boss Johnny Torrio. Because Yale used violence to run his gang, Torrio used cooperation and negotiation to his crime organization. Capone would in the end learn a lot from Torrio. Capone was both charming and charitable as well as powerful and vicious, became an iconic figure of the successful American gangster.

=How and why he got Famous=



In 1925 Torrio handed over the entire organization to Capone. Al Capone, only 26-years old, was now in charge of a very large crime organization that included brothels, nightclubs, dance halls, race tracks, gambling establishments restaurants, speakeasies, breweries, and distilleries, Capone was now in the public's eye. When he was out in public it was not hard to notice him, he wore colorful suits, a white fedora a big diamond on his ring and he would pull out large sums of cash right out of his pocket. he was known for his generosity, he would tip waiters $100 and he would hand out clothes and coal for the needy and he opened up some of the first soup kitchens during the great depression.

There are some stories of Capone helping people out personally like if they couldn’t afford to go to college he would give them money and if a women considered prostitution to help her family, to people he was known as a modern day robin hood.

=Criminal Background=

As much as the average citizen considered Capone to be a generous benefactor and local celebrity, Capon was also a cold-blooded killer. Al Capone is believed to have killed dozens of people and ordered hundreds of hits on others. In 1929 Capone invited three of his associates to dinner and his men tired them up and he beat them with a baseball bat then shot them in the head and threw them out side of town. the most famous killing was a hit he was believed to have ordered called the "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" in 1929 where "machine gun" Jack McGurn attempted to kill Capone's rival crime leader George "bugs" Moran but Moran was running a little late so Jack killed Moran's top men in a garage instead.



On February 27th Capone was asked to appear as a witness before a federal grand jury in Chicago on march 12th for a case involving a violation of prohibition laws. but he said he couldn't because he was sick when in reality he wasn't he was out and about going to the Bahamas and to races so on march 27th Capone was cited and arrested for contempt of the court.

=Historical Significance=

Al Capone was a notorious gangster who ran an organized crime syndicate in Chicago during the 1920s. Capone was involved in the Prohibition era which made him successful because of his underground clubs that served alcohol when there was none to be found. He was also known as one of the most generous people of his time for opening up one of the first soup kitchens. But his criminal record is the real thing that got him his place in history for ending the lives of so many people, and being one of the first criminals to try out the newly built Alcatraz until his untimely death on January 5, 1947 in his summer home in Miami, Florida at the age of 48. Capone, who was both charming and charitable as well as powerful and vicious, became an iconic figure of the successful American Gangster.

=Bibliography=