Home >
Al 'Scarface' Capone enters Alcatraz...
Al 'Scarface' Capone enters Alcatraz...
Item # 724518
August 23, 1934
FITCHBURG SENTINEL, Mass., Aug. 23, 1934
* Al "Scarface" Capone - Gangster - Mob boss
* Alcatraz Island Prison - San Francisco Bay
Near the bottom of the front page is a one column heading: "Capone Faces Prison Labor 48 Hours a Week" (see images)
Complete with 16 pages, light toning and minor wear at the margins, generally nice.
background: Al Capone’s arrival at Alcatraz on August 22, 1934, marked a calculated effort by the U.S. government to break the spirit of the nation’s most notorious mobster. Unlike his time in Atlanta, where he lived in relative luxury by bribing guards for special privileges, "The Rock" offered no such loopholes; Warden James A. Johnston ensured Capone received no preferential treatment, assigning him Inmate Register #85. The strict "Rule of Silence" and the isolation of the island took a heavy psychological toll on Capone, who pivoted from a swaggering underworld kingpin to a quiet prisoner who spent his hours practicing the banjo and joining the prison’s Sunday band. However, his discipline was overshadowed by a physical and mental collapse, as neurosyphilis began to ravage his brain, causing him to lose touch with reality and spend his final year on the island in the infirmary before his eventual transfer.
Category: The 20th Century
Available Now
$48.00
