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Unione Siciliana
The Italian-American National Union (formerly known as Unione Siciliana) was a Sicilian-American organization, which controlled much of the Italian vote within the United States during the early twentieth century. It was based in Chicago, Illinois. It was a major source of conflict during Prohibition, as underworld figures fought to control the highly influential organization through a series of puppet presidents largely controlled by the Chicago Outfit. During the 1970s, the organization was probably merged into the Italian Sons and Daughters of America. However, similar groups still exist and have much influence in Italian American communities throughout the United States. History The organization was founded in 1895 by Sicilian immigrants in Chicago. The name was changed to the Italian-American National Union in 1925 in order to attract Italian-Americans from other regions. The Union was paying out sick benefits and death benefits and had deposited $100,000 with the Illinois De ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sicilian-American
Sicilian Americans (Sicilian language, Sicilian: ''Sìculu-miricani; Italian language, Italian: Siculoamericani'') are Americans of Italian people, Italian Sicilians, Sicilian birth or ancestry. They are a large ethnic group in the United States. The first Sicilians who came to the territory that is now the United States were Exploration, explorers and Missionary, missionaries in the 17th century under the Spanish crown. Sicilian emigration to the United States then increased significantly in the starting from before 1880 to 1906, Direct connections by sea departed from the ports of Palermo and Castellammare del Golfo. Since emigration from Sicily began in the United States before the Italian unification, unity of Italy, and reached its peak at a time when regional differences were still very strong and marked, both Sicilian language, linguistically and Sicilians, ethnically, many of the Sicilian immigrants identified (and still identify) primarily on a regional rather than a nati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Torrio
John Donato Torrio (born Donato Torrio, ; January 20, 1882 – April 16, 1957) was an Italian born-American mobster who helped build the Chicago Outfit in the 1920s later inherited by his protégé Al Capone. Torrio proposed a National Crime Syndicate in the 1930s and later became an adviser to Lucky Luciano and his Genovese crime family, Luciano crime family. Torrio had several nicknames, primarily "The Fox" for his cunning and finesse. The United States Department of the Treasury, US Treasury official Elmer Lincoln Irey, Elmer Irey considered him "the biggest gangster in America" and wrote, "He was the smartest and, I dare say, the best of all the hoodlums. 'Best' referring to talent, not morals". Virgil W. Peterson of the Chicago Crime Commission stated that his "talents as an organizational genius were widely respected by the major gang bosses in the New York City area". Crime journalist Herbert Asbury affirmed: "As an organizer and administrator of underworld affairs, Johnny ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tony Accardo
Anthony Joseph Accardo (; born Antonino Leonardo Accardo, ; April 28, 1906 – May 22, 1992), also known as "Joe Batters" and "Big Tuna", was an American longtime mobster. In a criminal career that spanned eight decades, he rose from small-time hoodlum to the position of day-to-day boss of the Chicago Outfit in 1947, to ultimately becoming the final Outfit authority in 1972. Accardo moved the Outfit into new operations and territories, greatly increasing its power and wealth during his tenure as boss. Early life Accardo was born on April 28, 1906, in Chicago's Near West Side, the second of six children of shoemaker Francesco Accardo and Maria Tilotta Accardo. One year prior to his birth, the Accardos had emigrated from Castelvetrano, in the Province of Trapani, Sicily, Italy to America. At age 14, Accardo left school and started loitering around neighborhood pool halls. He soon joined the Circus Cafe Gang, run by Claude Maddox and Tony Capezio, one of many street gangs in the poor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Nitti
Frank Ralph Nitto (born Francesco Raffaele Nitto, ; January 27, 1886 – March 19, 1943), known as Frank Nitti, was an Italian-American organized crime figure based in Chicago. The first cousin and bodyguard of Al Capone, Nitti was in charge of all money flowing through the operation. Nitti later succeeded Capone as acting boss of the Chicago Outfit. Early life and prohibition Nitti was born Francesco Raffaele Nitto on January 27, 1886, in the small town of Angri, province of Salerno, Campania, Italy. He was the second child of Luigi and Rosina (Fezza) Nitto and a first cousin of Al Capone. His father died in 1888, when Frank was two years old, and within a year his mother married Francesco Dolendo. Although two children were born to the couple, neither survived—leaving Francesco and his older sister, Giovannina, the only children. Francesco Dolendo emigrated to the United States in July 1890, and the rest of the family followed in June 1893 when Nitti was seven. The family set ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pasqualino Lolordo
Pasquale Lolordo (1887 – January 8, 1929), also known as Pasqualino or "Patsy", was an Italian-born American Mafia boss from Ribera, Sicily, and head of the Chicago chapter of the Unione Siciliana, a "front" organization for the Mafia. Lolordo was considered one of the most powerful mafia bosses during the late 1920s. Lolordo succeeded Antonio "The Scourge" Lombardo, an associate of Al Capone, as chapter president. Lombardo had been killed only months before after he refused to turn the presidency over to Mafia mobster Joe Aiello. Lolordo was supported by the national Unione Siciliana president, Frankie Yale, in New York. Some speculate that Lolordo wanted to reform the organization like another former chapter leader, Mike Merlo. Lolordo did not have sufficient time to do anything. On January 8, 1929, he was shot and killed by unidentified gunmen in his home. The killing was arranged by George "Bugs" Moran, a leader of the North Side Gang and a bitter rival of Capone, as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Five Families
The Five Families refers to five major New York City organized crime families of the Italian American Mafia formed in 1931 by Salvatore Maranzano following his victory in the Castellammarese War. Maranzano reorganized the Italian American gangs in New York City into the Maranzano, Profaci, Mangano, Luciano, and Gagliano families, which are now known as the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese families. Each family had a demarcated territory and an organizationally structured hierarchy and reported up to the same overarching governing entity. Initially, Maranzano intended each family's boss to report to him as the '' capo di tutti i capi'' ("boss of all the bosses"). However, this led to his assassination that September, and that role was abolished for The Commission, a ruling committee established by Lucky Luciano to oversee all Mafia activities in the United States and to mediate conflicts between families. It consisted of the bosses of the Five Families as well ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Masseria
Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria (; January 17, 1886April 15, 1931) was an early Italian-American Mafia boss in New York City. He was boss of what is now called the Genovese crime family, one of the New York City Mafia's Five Families, from 1922 to 1931. In 1930, he battled in the Castellammarese War to take over the criminal activities in New York City. The war ended with his murder on April 15, 1931, in a hit ordered by his own lieutenant, Charles "Lucky" Luciano, in an agreement with rival faction head Salvatore Maranzano. Early life Giuseppe Masseria was born on January 17, 1886, in Menfi, Province of Agrigento, Sicily, in a family of tailors. When he was young, he moved to the town of Marsala, in the Province of Trapani. Masseria arrived in the United States in 1902. He then became part of the Morello crime family based in Harlem and parts of Little Italy in southern Manhattan. Masseria was a contemporary of other captains of that mafia family such as Gaetano Reina. In 1909, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Underboss
Underboss ( it, sottocapo) is a position within the leadership structure of certain organized crime groups, particularly in Sicilian, Greek, and Italian-American Mafia crime families. The underboss is second in command to the boss. The underboss is sometimes a family member, such as a son, who will take over the family if the boss is sick, killed, or imprisoned. However the position of street boss has somewhat challenged the rank of underboss in the modern era. The position was installed within the Genovese crime family since at least the mid-1960s. It has also been used in the Detroit crime family and the Chicago Outfit. The power of an underboss greatly varies; some are marginal figures, while others are the most powerful individual in the family. Traditionally they run day-to-day affairs of the family. In some crime families, the appointment is for life. If a new boss takes over a family with an existing underboss, that boss may marginalize or even murder the underboss appo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonio Lombardo
Antonio "Tony the Scourge" Lombardo (; November 23, 1891 – September 7, 1928) was an Italian-born American mobster. He was ''consigliere'' to Al Capone, and later the President of the Unione Siciliana. Biography Born in the town of Galati Mamertino in Sicily on November 23, 1891, Antonio Lombardo immigrated to the United States in the early 20th century where he became a successful wholesale grocery business owner in Chicago, Illinois. In September 1917 he was involved in the killing of Cleveland Police Officer Elmer Glaefke A long time Mafia associate, Lombardo became Al Capone's advisor after John Torrio retired in 1925. Lombardo tried unsuccessfully to negotiate peace between the Chicago Outfit and the North Side Gang during the four-year gang war, suggesting that Capone surrender supposed Dean O'Banion assassins Albert Anselmi and John Scalise, which Capone refused. Lombardo, with the help of Capone, later became President of the Unione Siciliana in November 1925, att ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel Capone (; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit. His seven-year reign as a crime boss ended when he went to prison at the age of 33. Capone was born in New York City in 1899 to Italian immigrants. He joined the Five Points Gang as a teenager and became a bouncer in organized crime premises such as brothels. In his early twenties, he moved to Chicago and became a bodyguard and trusted factotum for Johnny Torrio, head of a criminal syndicate that illegally supplied alcohol—the forerunner of the Outfit—and was politically protected through the Unione Siciliana. A conflict with the North Side Gang was instrumental in Capone's rise and fall. Torrio went into retirement after North Side gunmen almost killed him, handing control to Capone. Capone expanded the bootlegging b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vincent Drucci
Vincent Drucci (born Ludovico D'Ambrosio; January 1, 1898 – April 4, 1927), also known as "The Schemer", was an American mobster during Chicago's Prohibition era who was a member of the North Side Gang, Al Capone's best known rivals. A friend of Dean O'Banion, Drucci succeeded him by becoming co-leader. He is the only American organized crime boss to have been killed by a policeman. Early years Drucci was born Ludovico D'Ambrosio in Chicago, Illinois, on January 1, 1898, to Italian parents from northern Italy. After serving in the U.S. Navy, he returned to Chicago and started committing small-time crimes such as breaking open pay telephone coin boxes. He joined Dean O'Banion's North Side Gang, which had taken over the formerly legal breweries and distilleries in that part of the city giving them massive profits from illicit production of alcohol, in addition to shakedowns and other rackets. Often described as mainly Irish-American, after O'Banion's death the North Side Gang wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuzzo Amatuna
Salvatore "Samoots" Ammatuna (August 3, 1898 – November 13, 1925) was an Italian-born American mobster and member of the Genna (crime family), Genna Brothers in Chicago who served as president of the Unione Siciliane. Early life Ammatuna was born in Pozzallo, Sicily in 1898 and emigrated to the United States in the early 20th century, eventually arriving in Chicago's Little Italy. As a teenager, he worked as a messenger for the Genna (crime family), Genna Brothers, a group of ruthless Sicilian gangsters. He earned a full membership in the Genna gang on February 21, 1916 at age 17 by murdering Frank Lombardi outside a saloon. Lombardi was a supporter of incumbent Chicago alderman John Powers (alderman), John Powers, a bitter enemy of the Genna brothers. The brutal warfare between the Gennas and Powers became known in Chicago as the Aldermen's Wars. Prohibition and the Bloody Nineteenth Ward Prohibition began in 1920, and Ammatuna had already become one of the Gennas' leading mem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_at_Mount_Carmel_Cemetery%2C_Hillside%2C_IL_1.jpg "Click for more on -> Frank Nitti")
_at_Mount_Carmel_Cemetery%2C_Hillside%2C_IL_1.jpg "Click for more on -> Antonio Lombardo")
_at_Mount_Carmel_Cemetery%2C_Hillside%2C_IL_1.jpg "Click for more on -> Vincent Drucci")