The Life And Times Of Al Capone Essay

When Capone was 19, he married an Irish girl named Mae Coughlin, a few weeks after they gave birth to their son, Albert Francis Capone. After their marriage, Capone took a moral job as a bookkeeper. This brief hiatus ended when his father died and Torrio offered Capone to move to Chicago and work for him. Capone accepted this invitation and began working for Torrio’s lucrative bootlegging business. Bootlegging, as you might wonder, is the illegal sale of alcohol during the Prohibition

Prohibition led to the bootlegging of liquor and the gang wars of the 1920’s. The most notorious gangster of all time, known as Al Capone, was the most powerful mob leader of his era. He dominated organized crime in the Chicago area from 1925 until 1931. Capone grew up during the roaring 20s in Chicago. He joined the James Street gang, lead by Johnny Torrio. In 1920, Torrio asked Capone to move to Chicago and work with his uncle who controlled the city’s largest prostitution and gambling ring at the time. Capone had liked that idea. Later that year the Prohibition act came into affect and Capone became interested in selling illegal whiskey and other alcoholic beverages. Al Capone was America's best known gangster and greatest

Al Capone, who was born in New York in 1899, was one of the most prominent gangsters in America in the 1920s. He was the son of Italian immigrants, and after leaving school at a young age, became a small-time criminal. Known as ‘Scarface,’ he had links to the leader of the Five Points Gang, Johnny Torrio, and moved to Chicago in 1920, where he gradually rose through the ranks as a partner in saloons, gambling and brothels. They moved their operations to Illinois after an offer to work with Jim Colosimo, a central figure in Chicago’s brothel business. Gang rivalry heated up after a dispute between Torrio and Colosimo over whether to begin in the bootlegging business, and in 1920, Colosimo was murdered allegedly by Al Capone. After this, Torrio’s criminal empire expanded massively throughout Chicago, before leaving in 1925 and handing over operations to Capone. After taking over, Capone expanded operations even further, and was able to control Chicago’s Mayor, ‘Big Bill’ Thompson and fix his elections. A local newspaper from the time reported

Capone quickly went into hiding, fearing he would be tried for McSwiggin's murder. He remained out of sight for nearly three months, and then after realizing he couldn't live the remainder of his life underground, he negotiated his surrender to the Chicago Police. The authorities eventually recognized that they lacked sufficient evidence to bring Capone to trial, and though very unpopular with public opinion, he was set free. The public was outraged and law officials were left embarrassed. "Big Al" had become one of the most powerful crime czars in Chicago. It was said that Capone was now big as life, and more powerful than the mayor himself.

Capone’s early life begins when his Italian immigrant parents Gabrielle and Teresa Capone moved to America. He was born on January 17, 1899. Al was one of eight children in his family; however his family did not make too much money being his father worked as a barber and his mother worked as a seamstress. He grew up in Brooklyn, and went to school at Brooklyn Elementary. During his sixth grade year he started falling behind so he had to repeat sixth grade. Capone started playing hooky and hung around the Brooklyn docks. One day during school the principal hit Capone for being rude and disrespectful, however instead of taking it Capone hit the principal back. They moved from their tenements to the the outskirts of Park Slope. This is the place he met his gangster mentor Johnny Torrio.

Al Capone was born on January 17, 1899 in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up with poor immigrant parents and had 7 brothers and sisters. His Father’s name was Gabriele Capone,and his Mother’s name was Teresina Capone. Al was a good student in school until he reached the sixth grade and got into a altercation with his teacher and punched her. After the incident he never went back to school and instead looked to street gangs. Two gangs he joined were the Brooklyn Rippers, and the Forty Thelves. His family then decided it was best for them to move to a safer area and moved to the outskirts of Brooklyn. Al met his wife at this time and two men named Johnny Torrio and Frankie Yale. Torrio was one of the biggest partners Al had ever worked with and also the godfather of his son Albert Francis and Frankie gave Al a job as a bartender and bouncer at the Howard Inn. Meeting these two men was the Start of something new ("Al Capone").

Al Capone was a highly known gangster in the 1920s Alphonse Capone born in Brooklyn, New York to a poor US immigrant couple, Gabriele and Teresina Capone, seeking a better opportunity for their then big family of eight children. He was known for running many lucrative illegal businesses that included alcohol bootlegging, gambling, prostitution, and protection. Al Capone was so notorious that he would murder those who got in his way. With little prosecution of his actions, Al Capone believed his self to being unstoppable. Al Capone, being raised as a kid in poverty learned hands on how to organize crime and became the biggest force in organized crime.

Torrio first set Capone out to do all of his dirty work. “Capone was sent to beat up loan shark victims behind on their payments, then a pimp, beating up girls who were holding out on their nightly take. (The Mafia Encyclopedia 68)” Torrio finally got Capone a job as a bouncer at the Harvard Inn. By this time Capone was recognized by his gang as being a vicious fighter with both fists and knives. He also became an excellent marksman with both a revolver and automatic

Gabriele and Teresina Capone, along with their three sons, were two of the 43,000 Italians who arrived in the U.S. in 1894. After five years in the United States, a forth son joined the family as Teresina gave birth to the family's Alphonse Capone. Since their arrival, nothing "about the Capone family was inherently disturbed, violent, or dishonest... They were a law-abiding, unremarkable Italian-American family with conventional patterns of behavior and frustrations; they displayed no special genius for crime, or anything else, for that matter," (Bardsley 2000).

Once Capone had reached a reasonable measure of success, he made sure to be an equal opportunity employer in order to help others around him reach his level of prosperity. A Chicago photographer once wrote, “He knew how to pick people for certain positions in certain categories… And they were not all Italians. He had people of every nationality you could think of.” Capone also valued honesty in all aspects of his life. He viewed himself as “just a businessman who supplies people with what they want to buy, in the good old American way.” Capone also noted that if he was not a gangster, he would have likely been “selling newspapers barefoot on the street in Brooklyn.” Capone understands that his life is not a safe or secure one, and values honestly and simplicity in his life.

Conceived in 1899 in New York, to poor settler guardians, Al Capone went ahead to end up noticeably the most notorious criminal in American history. In 1920 amid the prohibition heights, Capone's multi-million dollar Chicago undertakings in prostitution, betting and bootlegging ruled the sorted out wrongdoing scene. Capone was in charge of numerous ruthless demonstrations of viciousness, mostly against different criminals. St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929 was the most famous killings, in which he requested the death of seven adversaries. Capone was never prosecuted for his racketeering yet was, at last, conveyed to equity for money tax avoidance in 1931. After serving six-and-a-half years, Capone was discharged (Kobler, 2003). However, his death occurred in Miami in 1947. Capone's life caught the general population creative ability, and his hoodlum persona has been deified in the numerous books and movies propelled by his exploits. Additionally, this paper tries to give an outline of Al Capone life, violations, and passing.

In 1923, Capone and Torrio had to move their operations to the suburb of Chicago, Cicero. They were forced to move their operations because of the election of William E. Denver, who was determined to end the corruption in Chicago. This was not the end of Torrio and Capone’s political problems. Although, unlike in Chicago, Capone and Torrio did not let the mayoral election in Cicero push them out of the suburb. They ensured their candidates would be elected on March 31,1924, by causing some voters to be shot and killed (history.com, Al Capone).

Although many gangsters came from an impecunious and or illiterate families, Al Capone’s family was an educated family. His father, Gabriele, was educated and from Naples, where he had earned a living as a barber. Al Capone had lived in an area where crime did not influenced him but when he moved he had met John Torrio. John Torrio was a big time gangster at the time and it was Torrio that would teach Capone how to run a criminal organization. Torrio had represented a new era of criminal empire, which he would be passing down to Capone.

The disagreements between Torrio and Colosimo led to the ultimately downfall of their empire when Torrio called for a hit on Colosimo, sending for a young Al Capone in 1920. After a five-year run of the market flooded with wealth, Torrio retired, leaving control over prostitution, gambling and bootlegging to "Scarface" Al Capone. Once in control, Capone focused on the production and distribution of alcohol, and the upkeep of speakeasy (which served as an additional outlet for the market of gambling), notably stating that “somebody had to throw some liquor ..[to satisfy the].. thirst.” It is through Capone taking advantage of the system that organized crime under his rule thrived in the streets of Chicago. Bribing all law enforcement and city officials that stood in his way Capone took the legitimacy out of the law by continuing his control over the streets. Having this power allowed for the protection in his business and the ability to target threatening gangs distilleries and fronts through the usage of police enforcement. Since there was no end of demand, Capone was then able to pay off any form of enforcement that posed a threat to the operation and future success of his gang, yielding Capon to hold a monopoly on Chicago's

Before I compared the fictional work with real-life Capone, I thoroughly researched him and gathered many crucial details that can help reveal his personality and events that could have affected him. The sources I used are from professional websites that have valid resources. Many of my sources describe him to be a powerful man who was “the greatest gangster of all time”. The articles I used focus on his numerous crimes and how he had little to no consequences for them until he got fined a massive amount of money and was imprisoned for 11 years. Most of the articles emphasize the fact his childhood affected