Capone, Al

Capone, Al (1899–1947), major Chicago bootlegger who symbolized the supposed lawlessness of the 1920s Prohibition Era.Alphonse Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York, left school at fourteen, and joined the street life of the city. Around 1919 or 1920, Capone moved to Chicago, where he aided John Torrio in building a major bootlegging operation. In 1925, after Torrio was shot and decided to leave Chicago, four individuals became joint partners in overseeing the expanding operations: Capone, his brother Ralph, their cousin Frank Nitti, and Jack Guzik. They entered into agreements with other entrepreneurs to coordinate a highly decentralized system for distributing liquor, managing gambling houses and slot machines, and operating various nightclubs and brothels. In 1928, Capone purchased a mansion near Miami on Palm Island, visiting Chicago only occasionally thereafter. In 1929–1930, he spent nearly a year in a Philadelphia jail after an arrest for carrying a concealed weapon.

The media creation of a notorious and largely fictional Capone stemmed from two main factors. First, bootlegging in Chicago received national and international attention because of the unusual violence that characterized the struggles among bootleggers, including the notorious St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929. Second, Capone courted media attention, held press conferences, and reveled in the attention that he received. Out of the articles, books, movies, and television dramas, there eventually emerged a fictional master criminal who was given the nickname “Scarface” and portrayed as one who helped create “organized crime” in America and controlled the city of Chicago during his heyday.

Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion in October 1931. Serving time in the Atlanta Penitentiary and then in San Francisco's Alcatraz, he was released in 1939 suffering from syphilis of the brain. He retired with his wife and son to Palm Island, where he died of a stroke. Although his criminal career was brief, the fictional Capone has continued to shape not only America's vision of the 1920s but also the power of criminals in American society.
See also Crime; Prostitution and Antiprostitution; Temperance and Prohibition; Twenties, The.

Bibliography

Laurence Bergreen , Capone, 1994.
David E. Ruth , Inventing the Public Enemy: The Gangster in American Culture, 1918–1934, 1996.

Mark H. Haller