Well after the hype of Public Enemies I've been reading lots about the historical gangster wars of the early 1930s... The 1930s has always been an American time period that fascinates me... It was a decade of crisis due to the Great Depression, and the Prohibition, and yet it brought about so much culture... Swing music, baseball, the fedora hat, radio, boxing, and the golden years of Hollywood.... It was undoubtedly a hard time for Americans yet they still found ways to endure... Such as following the news of the radio, where they could put their problems aside, to follow the problems of others... One thing that especially caught America's interest was the growing number of outlaws, robbers, gangsters, and criminals from the years 1931 to 1934 which has become known as the Public Enemy Era...
Here we saw big name criminals such Al Capone, Bonnie & Clyde, John Dillenger, Baby Face Nelson, and Pretty Boy Floyd rise to become media celebrities... Their conquests became a thing of imagination as the defied the system to live a life of pure outlaw... They worked above the law, well organized, well armed, and well dressed... They were chased and hunted by the cops and later by the FBI... It became so serious that J. Edgar Hoover declared war against these cold criminals... Chicago became the home base for the worlds most ruthless criminals, robbers, and gangsters... It was here that big gangs like Al Capone's Chicago Outfit and the North Side Gang, practically ran the city... It came to a point where these gangsters had more power than the authorities... They were terrible people, and yet they were adored by the public...
People like John Dillenger, a fellow Hoosier, became one of the most famous of the Public Enemies. He was a notorious bank robber, known as the jackrabbit, smooth-moving, and always one step ahead of the cops... He robbed dozens of banks, escaped jail twice, and lived a glamorous life for a few years until he was finally caught and shot in the head...
Bonnie and Clyde became a very famous couple, known for robbing banks, stores, and gas stations all across the Central United States. They were seen as folk heroes, in the likes of Robin-Hood, striking at the rich... They were finally killed in an epic shootout in Louisiana...
Baby Face Nelson, was a hot-headed, Chicago Native and bank-robber... His most notable trait was his short-temper, and willingness to kill a cop. He worked with John Dillenger for some time, and became Public Enemy Number 1, after Dillenger was killed.
Pretty Boy Floyd was a bank robber, best known for his involvement in the Kansas City Massacre, a shootout against the cops. This later led to an FBI investigation where Floyd was finally captured and shot in a farm in Ohio.
The Karpis/Barker gang headed up by Ma Barker is quite an interesting one... There is still to this day speculation of whether Ma Barker was the mastermind of the gang, or just a mere participant... However she joined forces with Alvin Karpis and together they formed one of the most notorious criminal gangs of the 1930s, not afraid to kill any who stood in their way... She was finally shot to death by FBI Agents in Florida.
These public enemies are flat-out bad people, the scum of the earth... and yet for some reason, they have become romanticized by American culture... They lived as outlaws, without regards to the law, taking whatever they wanted by any means necessary... Sure such a life is frowned upon, but it also does bring something to the imagination... These public enemies are to some extent considered folk heroes, because they represented the common person of the day, and robbed from the rich elite... yet unlike Robin Hood these robbers did not give to the poor, and they showed us that a life of crime is always likely to have an abrupt ending...
Here we saw big name criminals such Al Capone, Bonnie & Clyde, John Dillenger, Baby Face Nelson, and Pretty Boy Floyd rise to become media celebrities... Their conquests became a thing of imagination as the defied the system to live a life of pure outlaw... They worked above the law, well organized, well armed, and well dressed... They were chased and hunted by the cops and later by the FBI... It became so serious that J. Edgar Hoover declared war against these cold criminals... Chicago became the home base for the worlds most ruthless criminals, robbers, and gangsters... It was here that big gangs like Al Capone's Chicago Outfit and the North Side Gang, practically ran the city... It came to a point where these gangsters had more power than the authorities... They were terrible people, and yet they were adored by the public...
People like John Dillenger, a fellow Hoosier, became one of the most famous of the Public Enemies. He was a notorious bank robber, known as the jackrabbit, smooth-moving, and always one step ahead of the cops... He robbed dozens of banks, escaped jail twice, and lived a glamorous life for a few years until he was finally caught and shot in the head...
Bonnie and Clyde became a very famous couple, known for robbing banks, stores, and gas stations all across the Central United States. They were seen as folk heroes, in the likes of Robin-Hood, striking at the rich... They were finally killed in an epic shootout in Louisiana...
Baby Face Nelson, was a hot-headed, Chicago Native and bank-robber... His most notable trait was his short-temper, and willingness to kill a cop. He worked with John Dillenger for some time, and became Public Enemy Number 1, after Dillenger was killed.
Pretty Boy Floyd was a bank robber, best known for his involvement in the Kansas City Massacre, a shootout against the cops. This later led to an FBI investigation where Floyd was finally captured and shot in a farm in Ohio.
The Karpis/Barker gang headed up by Ma Barker is quite an interesting one... There is still to this day speculation of whether Ma Barker was the mastermind of the gang, or just a mere participant... However she joined forces with Alvin Karpis and together they formed one of the most notorious criminal gangs of the 1930s, not afraid to kill any who stood in their way... She was finally shot to death by FBI Agents in Florida.
These public enemies are flat-out bad people, the scum of the earth... and yet for some reason, they have become romanticized by American culture... They lived as outlaws, without regards to the law, taking whatever they wanted by any means necessary... Sure such a life is frowned upon, but it also does bring something to the imagination... These public enemies are to some extent considered folk heroes, because they represented the common person of the day, and robbed from the rich elite... yet unlike Robin Hood these robbers did not give to the poor, and they showed us that a life of crime is always likely to have an abrupt ending...
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