 |
| Al Capone's mugshot, with his fedora
hat |
Quite a lot has been written and said about Al Capone in newspaper
and magazine articles, books, and movies that is completely false.
One of the most common fictions is that like many gangsters of that
era, he was born in Italy. Absolutely not true. This amazing crime
czar was strictly domestic -- taking the feudal Italian criminal
society and fashioning it into a modern American criminal
enterprise.
Certainly many Italian immigrants, like immigrants of all
nationalities, frequently came to the New World with very few
assets. Many of them were peasants escaping the lack of opportunity
in rural Italy. When they came to the large American port cities
they often ended up as laborers because of the inability to speak
and write English and lack of professional skills. This was
not the case with Al Capone's family.
advertisement
 |
Gabriele Capone (not Caponi as often claimed) was one of 43,000
Italians who arrived in the U.S. in 1894. He was a barber by trade
and could read and write his native language. He was from the
village of Castellmarre di Stabia, sixteen miles south of
Naples.
 |
| Al Capone's Mother, Teresina
Capone |
Gabriele, who was thirty years old, brought with him his pregnant
twenty-seven-year-old wife Teresina (called Teresa), his
two-year-old son Vincenzo and his infant son Raffaele. Unlike many
Italian immigrants he did not owe anyone for his passage over. His
plan was to do whatever work was necessary until he could open his
own barber shop.
Along with thousands of other Italians, the Capone family moved
to Brooklyn near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It was a stark beginning
in the New World. 95 Navy Street was a cold-water tenement flat
that had no indoor toilet or furnishings. The neighborhood was
virtually a slum, given its proximity to the noisy Navy Yard, its
many sailors and the vices that sailors seek when they're off
duty.
Gabriele's ability to read and write allowed him to get a job in
a grocery store until he was able to open his barber shop.
Teresina, in spite of her duties as a mother of a growing brood of
boys, took in sewing piecework to add to the family coffers. Her
third child, Salvatore Capone was born in 1895. Her fourth son and
the first to be born and conceived in the New World was born
January 17, 1899. His name was Alphonse Capone.