Preview

Al Capone Short Biography Essay Example

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
766 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Al Capone Short Biography Essay Example
Al Capone John Tozer The purpose of this short biography on Al Capone is that it relates greatly to the novel "The great Gatsby" because Al Capone is similar to Gatsby in many ways. The fact that both Gatsby and Al both resorted to crime to achieve their prosperity is greatly reminiscent of a growing materialness and desperateness in that age. Al Capone is a great representation of an individual who wanted to live the "American Dream" and put himself on the line to do so.
Al Capone is for westerners the most infamous gangster of all time he was a main contributor to the notoriety of the Italian mafia and Chicago crime scene.
Alphonsus Capone was born on January 17, 1899, in New York.," he grew up in a rough neighborhood and was at a young age entered two "kid gangs," where he became more familiar and experienced with organized crime and violence their names were the Brooklyn Rippers and the Forty Thieves Juniors. While being quite smart He dropped out of school in the sixth grade. He worked part time in a candy store and as well as being a pinboy in a bowling alley, and a cutter in a book bindery he focused a lot of his free time on scams and petty theft from there his first main break as a "professional criminal" was when he was initiated into the notorious Five Points gang in Manhattan and worked under gangster Frankie Yale's Brooklyn drive as a bouncer and bartender. While working there he received facial scars from bar fights and received the nickname "scarface."
In 1918 Capone married a girl he met at a dance who gave birth to a son "sonny" Francis.
Al's first brush with the law came because of "disorderly conduct." He was also suspected of the murder of two men at the time but wasn't convicted because those around him covered for him, which was uncommon for fellow gangsters to do. His gang leader for his own safety relocated Capone to Chicago because he severely injured a rival gang member. While there he became the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    From childhood to death, Al Capone had been one of the most infamous, ruthless gangsters of 20th century. Al Capone had assassinated and order many of people to be killed. He was hated by some and loved by others. He had a multi-million dollar operation, which included; bootlegging, prostitution, and gambling. he had never been charged with any murders but have only charged with income tax-evasion. He spent the three years of his prison term in a mental health hospital, and then he spent the last few years of his life with his wife in…

    • 858 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    John Wayne Gacy

    • 2065 Words
    • 7 Pages

    John Wayne Gacy was a convicted serial killer who murdered 33 young males. His nickname was the Killer Clown. As a child. he was often severely beat by his drunken father because he had congenital heart disease and was seen as abnormal in the family. When he first started attending school, other students teased him. Sometime later, he discovers that he was strongly attracted to males.…

    • 2065 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Francesco Vincent Serpico was born on April 14, 1936 in Brooklyn, NY. At the age of 18 Serpico enlisted in the United States army and spent two years in Korea. In 1959 Frank Serpico graduated form the police academy and was sworn into the New York City Police Department.…

    • 1527 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In 1925, Torrio was severely injured in an attack by the North Side Gang; he turned over his business to Capone and returned to Italy. During the Prohibition Era, Capone controlled large portions of the Chicago underworld, which provided The Outfit with an estimated US$100 million per year in revenue.[21] This wealth was generated through numerous illegal vice enterprises, such as gambling and prostitution; the highest revenue was generated by the sale of liquor.[4]…

    • 315 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Al Capone was a complicated man; even though he scammed many people, Capone gave back to his community by creating soup kitchens and other forms of charity. Despite all this he appeared on up and coming gang leader, Johnny Torrio’s, radar. Capone went to Chicago to work for Mr. Torrio. “Capone was twenty-one years old and new in town. He worked in Chicago’s Levee District, south of downtown, a neighborhood of sleazy bars and bordellos, where a man, if he cared about his health, tried not to stay long and tried not to touch anything.” (Eig 3) Capone was a great asset to the gang; after all he had grown up in the business. He was involved with street gangs when he dropped out of school in sixth grade, and worked as a bouncer when he got older. He tended to the bar called The Four Deuces; other times he resorted to his old job and worked the front door, acting as a bouncer. Soon, the Prohibition law came around and Torrio and Capone found themselves in a new…

    • 1705 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    After Lucky Luciano went to prison in 1936, Costello became the boss of the Luciano crime family, the most powerful crime family in New York and one of the Five Families of the New York Mafia.…

    • 82 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    This attracted Torrio to move from New York to Chicago where he asked Capone to assist him in 1919. But little did Capone know that the reason he was invited to Chicago was to assassinate Torrio’s boss, giving Torrio power as he was next in line in the family. Torrio’s success continued and he would remain in power until 1925, when he decided to retire from organized crime. After his retirement Capone stepped in and became one of the most feared gangsters of Chicago, controlling organized crime, gambling and bootlegging operations. Capone was a vicious killer who liked to expand his territory throughout the city of Chicago and he was not shy in killing other gang members to get the job done. Capone was also known for having the most loyal and dedicated gang in America. He had two bodyguards with him at all times and often travelled at night to keep a low profile and to avoid conflict with other gangs and the authorities. Capone’s career as a gangster and in organized crime would slow down when he married Mae Josephine Coughlin, an Irish Catholic who gave birth to their first son Albert “Sonny” Capone a month…

    • 907 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jack Engel Gilmore/Lombardo American Litt pd.6 1/28/15 Great Gatsby panel The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald is praised for accurately portraying the lavish lives of the rich and powerful in the the 1920s. One topic that the Great Gatsby portrays accurately is corruption, which was very common with the wealthy and powerful such as Jay Gatsby. Throughout the novel we learn of how some people became wealthy or successful through the participation of of illegal or corrupt activities such as bootlegging, rigging sports events, and other illegal activities. Al Capone is a name that is still talked about even in modern times he is the best known gangster and the greatest figure of the collapse of law and order in the United States…

    • 626 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Al Capone was born in 1899 in Brooklyn and went on to become the most famous gangster in American History. When Capone was 19, he married Mae Coughlin just a few weeks after the birth of their child, Albert. Now, as a husband and father, Capone wanted to do right by his family. So Capone moved to Baltimore and started a job as a bookkeeper for a construction company. But when Capone’s father died of a heart attack in 1920, Torrio invited him to come to Chicago and Al jumped at the opportunity.…

    • 306 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Alphonse Capone was the most infamous mobster in the 1920s. He was “like any other man. ‘All I do is supply a demand’” (brainyquote.com ). During the prohibition era, Capone was the boss and co-founder of the Chicago Outfit. Although he is known for the horrific things he was involved in, his childhood was not all that amazing either.…

    • 1243 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Capone was born poor in Brooklyn, New York. His mother, Teresina Capone, was a very religious woman and a seamstress. His father, Gabriel Capone, was a very respectable barber. Their kids however, did not turn out like them. Al was one of 9 children, 7 sons and 2 daughters. Capone dropped out of school at 14. Even from a young age Capone built this idea of him being the hero or being in the limelight. He would build these gangs of children to help get back elderly people's possessions that the older kids stole. Once he got back their possessions he would throw a parade, painting himself the heroine. His brothers Ralph and Frank worked in the crime business with him. Ralph was in charge of the illegal and legal bottling companies. Frank died at a young age because of being in the crime business.…

    • 881 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In 1919, Capone moved to Chicago to escape arrest on a murder charge. Al Capone…

    • 234 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Capone was born in Brooklyn in New York City to some Italian immigrants. He was considered a Five Points Gang member who became a bouncer for a strip club. In his early twenties, He decided to move to Chicago and became a body guard for a Johnny Torrio, head of a criminal syndicate who illegal supplies and sells alcohol. A conflict with the North Side Gang was Capone’s rise and fall. Torrio went in retirement because he was almost killed by some North Side gunmen, which handed control to Capone. Capone expanded the bootlegging business through violent means, but his mutually relationship with the mayor and the city…

    • 824 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Who was the biggest and most daring criminal during the Roaring twenties when bootlegging and was at it organized crime was at its peak? Many would say it was Al Capone. Alfonso Caponi was born in Brooklyn, New York in January of 1899. He was the fourth child of ten children born to his family. Al Capone was a normal kid growing up, that is until he got into an altercation with his 6th grade teacher and afterwards was whipped by his principle. Even though Capone was 14 years-old at the time he never returned to school after the altercation. He eventually moved on to a neighborhood gang where he eventually met his future boss and partner Johnny Torrio.…

    • 897 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    President Herbert Hoover, after the St. Valentine Day Massacre, became alert and Capone came under the radar. The federal government was asked to step in and take some action against Capone. Capone remained really confident that he won’t get caught. As usual, Capone tried to use his weapons like intimidation and bribery to buy the jury but the jury got changed at the last moment and the new jury was asked to take the decision. Capone was found guilty for…

    • 218 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays