The Wicked City: Chicago from Kenna to Capone
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Book Overview
The Wicked City is an account of Chicago's vice, crime, capitalism, and corruption from Pierre the Mole, who sold whiskey to the Indians, through Jonny Torrio and Al Capone, who bootlegged a Great Lake's worth of booze during the Roaring Twenties. Chicago's drive for wealth and power in this fifty-year span are evoked through the spirited accounts of the careers of its leading tycoons--such as Charles Yerkes, Marshall Field, George Pullman, and Big Bill Thompson--and its leading gangsters: the Terrible Gennas, Jim Colosino, Dion O'Banion, Diamond Joe Esposito, Johnny Torrio, and Al Capone. The Chicago portrayed here is raw, real, and vital; its raucousness, lawlessness, ebullience, and greed become poetic.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0306808218
ISBN13:9780306808210
Release Date:March 1998
Publisher:Da Capo Press
Length:406 Pages
Weight:1.42 lbs.
Dimensions:1.0" x 5.8" x 8.9"
Customer Reviews
1 rating
Interesting Look at Chicago's past villians and others
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 18 years ago
This book gives readers a sense of Chicago's past by examining notorious villains and others that inhabited our city during its period of great expansion from 1880-1930. During that time Chicago grew on the strength of industry and immigration from 503,000 persons in 1880 to well over 3 million by 1930. These pages contain vignettes about gangsters like Johnny Torrio and Al Capone (both were originally from New York), crooked yet caring politicians like Bathhouse John Coughlin and Hinky Dink Kenna, and arrogant tycoons like George Pullman and Charles Yerkes. There's also some discussion of good guy artists like Louis Armstrong, Theodore Dreiser, Carl Sandburg, etc., but the book is mostly devoted to the non-angelic. The vignettes are never too long, and always interesting, but the narrative seems a bit unorganized, and it helps if one is acquainted with the city's general history. Still, this is an interesting book. Our city probably deserves its reputation for corruption, but one wonders why the like sins of other cities are so often ignored. Whatever the reasons, this narrative makes an interesting read.
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