Alphonse Gabriel Capone, 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 from 1925 to 1931. His seven-year reign as a crime boss ended when he went to prison at the age of 33.
Capone in 1930
The young Capone with his mother
Unemployed men outside a soup kitchen opened by Capone in Chicago during the Depression, February 1931
The entrance to Capone's mansion in Palm Island, Florida, located at 93 Palm Avenue. Capone bought the estate in 1928 as a winter retreat and lived there until his death in 1947.
Prohibition in the United States
The Prohibition era was the period from 1920 to 1933 when the United States prohibited the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages. The alcohol industry was curtailed by a succession of state legislatures, and finally ended nationwide under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on January 16, 1919. Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933.
Detroit policemen inspect the equipment used in a clandestine brewery during the Prohibition era.
Pro-prohibition political cartoon, from 1874
The Drunkard's Progress – moderate drinking leads to drunkenness and disaster: A lithograph by Nathaniel Currier supporting the temperance movement, 1846
"Who does not love wine, wife and song, will be a fool his whole life long!" (Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib & Gesang / Bleibt ein Narr sein Leben lang.)
