American Biographies - History Books

During the early twentieth century, Sicilian and Southern Italian immigrants poured into New York City.

Looking to escape poverty and persecution at home, they soon discovered that certain criminal enterprises followed them to America. Before any codes of honor were established in the New World, violent bosses wreaked havoc on their communities in their quest to rule the underworld. It took several decades for the Mafia to mature into a contemporary organized crime syndicate. Some names and places from both eras are still infamous today, like Frank Costello and the Copacabana, while some have remained hidden in absolute secrecy until now. Walk in their footsteps as New York City author Eric Ferrara explores the myths and realities of one of America's most feared and fascinating subjects.

Throughout the United States, there is no single major metropolitan area more closely connected to organized crime than New York City.

With the federal prohibition on alcohol in 1920, Gotham's shadowy underworld began evolving from strictly regional and often rag-tag street gangs into a sophisticated worldwide syndicate that was--like the chocolate egg crème--incubated within the confines of its five boroughs.New York City Ganglandoffers an unparalleled collection of rarely circulated images, many appearing courtesy of exclusive law enforcement sources, in addition to the private albums of notorious racketeering figures such as Charles "Lucky'? Luciano, Al "Scarface'? Capone, Joe "The Boss'? Masseria, "Crazy'? Joe Gallo, and John Gotti.

Take a tour of Buffalo, NY's mobster and mafia history. Local mob expert reveals gangsters' stories, hangouts and more.

Buffalo has housed its fair share of thugs and mobsters. Besides common criminals and bank robbers, a powerful crime family headed by local boss Stefano Magaddino emerged in the 1920s. Close to Canada, Niagara Falls and Buffalo were perfect avenues through which to transport booze, and Magaddino and his Mafiosi maintained a stranglehold on the city until his death in 1974. Local mob expert Michael Rizzo takes a tour of Buffalo's mafia exploits everything from these brutal gangsters' favorite hangouts to secret underground tunnels to murder.

Philadelphia Organized Crime in the 1920s and 1930s explores a little-known but spirited chapter of the Quaker City's history.

The hoodlums, hucksters, and racketeers of Prohibition-era Philadelphia sold bootleg booze, peddled illicit drugs, ran numbers, and operated prostitution and insurance rings. Among the fascinating personalities that created and contributed to the Philadelphia crime scene of the 1920s and 1930s were empire builders like Mickey Duffy, known as Prohibition's Mr. Big, and Max Boo Boo Hoff, dubbed the King of the Bootleggers; the violent Lanzetti brothers, who ran their own illegal enterprise; mobster Harry Nig Rosen Stromberg, a New York transplant; and the arsenic widows poison ring, which specialized in fraud and murder. Bringing to light rare photographs and forgotten characters, the authors chronicle the underworld of Philadelphia in the interwar era. The upheaval caused by the gangs and groups herein mirrors the frenzied cultural and political shifts of the Roaring Twenties and the austere 1930s.

Explore the fasciniating history of Prohibition in one of the places where it was most defied-- Baltimore, Maryland.

There was perhaps no region more opposed to Prohibition than Baltimore and Maryland. The Free State was defiant in its protest from thoroughly wet Governor Albert Ritchie to esteemed Catholic Cardinal James Gibbons. Maryland was the only state to not pass a "baby" Volstead enforcement act. Speakeasies emerged at Frostburg's Gunter Hotel and at Baltimore's famed Belvedere Hotel, whose famous owls' blinking eyes would notify its patrons if it was safe to indulge in bootleg liquor. Rumrunners were frequent on the Chesapeake Bay as bootleggers populated the city streets. Journalist H.L. Mencken, known as the "Sage of Baltimore," drew national attention criticizing the new law. Author Michael T. Walsh presents this colorful history.