Customer Reviews

Historic Photos of Chicago Crime: The Capone Era (Historic Photos)

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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.

This beautiful book is a product of the Chicago History Museum, showcasing many excellent pictures from Chicago, from the turbulent early decades of the 20th century. The pictures are arranged chronologically, all of them black-and-white, and all of them sharp and interesting to look at. All sorts of interesting subjects are covered here, from the race riot of 1919, through pre-Capone crime, and on through Al's reign to the aftermath of his incarceration. Lots of great Chicago landmarks are seen as are many famous and infamous (especially) Chicagoans.

This is a great book, one that I am really glad to own. The pictures are all crystal clear, and have short and well-written captions. Indeed, though it is a book of photos, it is so informative, that I would not hesitate to recommend it to someone who wants to learn about the history of crime in Chicago. I love this book, and give it my highest recommendations!

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.

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

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!