Heroic American Hero or Violent Italian Villain? Responses to Al Capone during the Prohibition Era (original) (raw)
Al Capone has been the subject of and inspiration for an endless range of books, TV series and movies, and has subsequently been framed as one of the most notorious criminals of all time. Considering the wide range of illegal activities Capone participated in as well as his controversial methods to achieve success that particular depiction seems understandable, but in many stories about Capone there is a sense of romanticism present as well. When writer Edward Dean Sullivan in 1929 dryly remarked that “[p]eople either like him very much — or want to kill him,” it becomes clear that at that time people also defined Capone in contradictory ways. The curious cultural, socio-economic and political climate of the Prohibition Era did not just open up the way for Al Capone to create his successful and powerful crime syndicate in Chicago, it also caused a split in public opinion to emerge as Capone was simultaneously being described as a violent gangster who disregarded the law and bribed his way to political power, and as an inspiring example of an Italian-American businessman living the American Dream.
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