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Historic Photos of Chicago Crime: The Capone Era (Historic Photos) | 
 enlarge | Author: John Russick
Publisher: Turner Pub Co
Category: Book
List Price: $39.95
Buy New: $28.00
You Save: $11.95 (30%)
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Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 130457
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 216
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.7
Dimensions (in): 10.2 x 10.1 x 1
ISBN: 1596523875
Dewey Decimal Number: 977
EAN: 9781596523876
ASIN: 1596523875
Publication Date: October 19, 2007
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Condition: Brand new hardback. 216 pages, 10" x 10". A riveting overview of crime in Chicago, chock-full of images documenting notorious gangsters and gruesome gangland wars. Al Capone, John Torrio, Earl ?Hymie? Weiss, George ?Bugs? Moran, and a host of others are all here. Replete with insightful captions and penetrating chapter introductions by historian John Russick, these photos offer a unique view into Chicago and its nefarious past.
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Product Description
The city of Chicago was incorporated March 4, 1837, and quickly grew to be the largest city incorporated that century. With the completion of the Illinois and Michigan canal, Chicago's real growth began. It is thought that Chicago's position on the map; as a last stop for many bachelors headed west to find fortunes added to the criminal activity that made Chicago a city of crime. Adding to the reputation is perhaps the most famous citizen of Chicago Al Capone. A man known for his grasp on organized crime, Capone is often single-handedly credited with the collapse of law during Prohibition. However, Capone was not alone. The pages of this beautiful coffee table book include photographs of many of Chicago's worst gangsters, thugs, and all-around street rats. A must-have for anyone who loves a good mob classic!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Interesting, But Somewhat Disorganized September 19, 2008
Borowy26 (Chicago)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Like many family photo albums, this book is in need of a few hours of reorganization and relabeling. While there are many interesting Chicago photographs contained in this collection, the accompanying text is rather meager in terms of its descriptive analysis of the culture of the period. The book is definitely worth looking at, but you will need to familiarize yourself with the subjects in order to fully appreciate the pictures that you are examining.
More than a few photos are incorrectly captioned: "Diamond Joe" Esposito was killed in advance of the April, 1926 Republican primary election, not on the actual date of the voting as the caption suggests; Joe Aiello was murdered on Kolmar Avenue, but this address was not his normal place of residence as the caption states; William Scott Stewart was a former assistant state's attorney who became a celebrated criminal defense attorney, but the caption omits his first name and identifies him as "Scott Stewart."
These are all minor errors, but cumulatively it becomes a tiresome distraction. I appreciate the difficulty in making accurate captions since many of the photographs were probably mislabeled when the originals were archived eighty plus years ago.
In other cases, the captions omit to mention facts that would have been of interest to some readers. For example, several crime scene photographs include Dr. Herman N. Bundesen, the Cook County Coroner, but he is not properly identified. The same is true of other individuals whose photos appear on other pages. Another common problem is that in many group photographs the captions do not identify the persons from left to right or vice versa, so readers unfamiliar with the period will be left trying to guess exactly who is who.
Despite its shortcomings, this book will be of some interest to true crime readers.
 Great pictorial September 14, 2008
Chriss Lyon (St. Joseph, Michigan United States)
Wonderful pictorial of Chicago's early days! Although I originally thought it would be filled with many of the same photos seen before, some gruesome, I was pleasantly surprised to see many that were not gruesome in any way and a large portion of them I had never seen before. If I hadn't looked at the title, I probably would not have associated it with crime at all, but more of an early history of Chicago. The photos are all large format, filling most of the page and limited captions so you are truely getting a photo book. I would compare this to a coffee table type edition. The book represents a good example of the era and you get a feel of what it was like by turning each page. A great book for those who enjoy history but don't feel like reading about it or anyone who loves Chicago!
A fascinating look at the rise of Chicago through Prohibition and the death of Capone March 4, 2008
Craig Matteson (Ann Arbor, MI)
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
Al Capone is the archetype of Chicago gangsterism. There were gangsters before him and there are gangsters today many decades after his mob disappeared. However, he is the stuff of legend and people still get excited when even possible new connections to him are found (or made up). This book provides a couple of hundred interesting pictures of how Chicago developed during the 1920s and 30s and how Prohibition was exploited by the gangs to supply a thirsty population with their booze.
John Russick wrote the brief text introducing the book and its four sections as well as the captions for each picture. The four sections are:
"Chicago in the Roaring Twenties (1900-1920s)", which shows how Chicago grew as people left the farms for city life. The crime boss of this era was Jim Colosimo.
"Birth of the Chicago Gangster (1919-1926)" shows us how Frank Yale took over after Colosmino was murdered (probably by Yale) and how Alphonse Capone was brought in from New York by Yale and how Capone became the ruler of Chicago crime. The rise of Prohibition gave the gangsters a commodity they could supply at immense profit. There were many competing gangs and their competitive struggles often erupted into violence.
"Gangland Chicago (1927-1929)" is the height of Capone's era when he was doing something like $100 million per year. There were moves against organized crime, but the people seemed to keep supporting corrupt elected officials who would protect the mob. However, all that changed after the St. Valentines Day Massacre in 1929.
"The End of the Capone Era (1930-1939)" chronicles Chicago as Prohibition was repealed and Capone was tried, convicted, and imprisoned over taxes.
An interesting book with wonderful pictures capturing the buildings, fashions, entertainments, and crime of those decades.
Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI
 A must have for the Chicago history buff December 1, 2007
Mario Gomes (Montreal ,Canada)
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I didn't even know about this book until I stumbled upon it. If you are a gangster/Chicago history buff, then this book is a must have! I applaude Mr. Russick for his efforts and kudos to the Chicago History museum for graciously letting him put out a book on some of their great shots. Many rare unseen photos.
I'm sure they have many more in storage and it would be great to see them in a possible second volume? Hopefully to include many other missing Chicago gangsters such as O'Banion, Mossy Enright,Lombardo, Lolordo,Merlo, Ammatuna, Drucci, Gusenbergs and more photos on the Gennas, Moran, O'Donnells.
The only minor irritants to this book are mislabelled or erroneous captions, which is not at all the fault of Mr. Russick, but is more a case of the Chicago History museum not expanding and correcting the original erroneous photo descriptions, which are now mistakenly accepted as fact.
Examples are; Page 135, Hymie Weiss lying dead on the ground, in actuality it is the body of Patrick Murray. Hymie Weiss died enroute to Henrotin hospital and his body wasn't left there to be photographed at the scene. On page 136, there is mention of a crowd gathered at the scene of Hymie Weiss' murder, when in fact, it's a crowd gathered outside Sbarbaro's funeral home. Hymie Weiss was killed in front of Holy Name Cathederal. Page 140 photo of Hymie Weiss' widow. Records show Hymie Weiss was never married to Montreal born Josephine Simard,which is why she lost her bid to acquire his estate.
Other typos are Frankie Yale being killed in 1927.(Frank Yale was killed in 1928). The caption for Anselmi and Scalise state them being the killers of Frankie Yale, when in fact, Al Capone had sent out his American boys( Burke, Goetz, Winkeler) along with Louis "Little New York" Campagna in tow as a directions expert in the New York city area. Scalise and Anselmi would have been like fish out of water in New York.
Page 145 has Jack Zuta's photo caption of him being killed in 1931.(He was killed in 1930).
Okay! okay! Maybe I'm too much of a damn stickler for details!! But don't let my little found errors dissuade you at all from getting this book.
It's a total feast for the eyes, especially if you love Chicago. A great book and a must have! I'm glad it's in my collection.
A Look Into Chicago's Infamous Past November 21, 2007
C. W. Emblom (Ishpeming, Michigan USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This new book contains several photographs of Chicago during the 1920's and 1930's that I haven't seen in previous books. Prepare yourself to see a number of fedoras and old automobiles. Hymie Weiss lying dead in the street, menacing looks of the Murder Twins Albert Anselmi and John Scalise, Machine Gun Jack McGurn, Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti, the scene at the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, Al Capone, and several others occupy the book's pages. What is missing, however, are photos of Jim Colosimo's cafe (inside and out), Schofield's Flower Shop (inside and out), Dion O'Banion, Capone's bookkeeper Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik, The Green Mill, and The Four Duces. These were all notable omissions to me. Also, on page 196 it is stated that the Biograph Theatre was located on North Clark Street when, in reality, it was located on North Lincoln Avenue. Finally, Vincent "Schemer" Drucci took over the North Side gang after O"Banion's death, not George "Bugs" Moran. Moran came later. Nevertheless, the book is a look at several shady characters that make up Chicago's infamous past, and is a good book to add to your collection.
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