Organized Crime in-class essay

Ben Justice

Lawson

Organized Crime 1880-1920

With the growth of cities, many new things came around, new modes of transportation, new living habits, and new illegal activities. Although crime has been around since the beginning of humans, stealing the other tribes food, murder, extortion, prostitution, crime has evolved, and will continue to evolve through time. While crime wasn’t the biggest event of the time, many reports on gang activities made the front page on many large newspapers such as the New York Times.

One of the first groups to rise in New York’s new crime era was the Whyos, named due to their odd warcry, the Whyos were around from the late 1860s to the early 1880s. While they started out before 1880, they really only started gaining substantial power around 1880. Their power came many ways, extortion, prostitution, and murder were their specialties. The Whyos weren’t just some street gang either, you had to have killed at least one person to be let in. Around the late 1880s, early 1890s the Whyos were being run down, either from death or imprisonment, they were all but gone. The absolute final straw was pulled when the leaders got in an argument about money and had a drunken shootout, resulting in no casualties, only incarceration.

The rise of the Eastman Gang came around at the fall of the Whyos, but they were not the only ones to rise, the Five Points Gang was the other big Gang that came out of the Whyos elimination. The Eastman Gang dominated New York from around 1890 to 1910. Their wealth and power came from various illegal activities such as prostitution and illegal gambling. The Eastman Gang came close to an end when Monk Eastman, founder and leader of the Eastman Gang, was arrested. When Monk was released he went into the army and fought bravely in WWI and was honorably discharged. It is rumored during his physical that the doctor asked what war he had been in, seeing all the stab and gunshot wounds, Monk replied with “Just a few(wars) in New York”. Following Monk’s death the gang was split into 3 factions and was later brought down when 2 of the 3 abandoned the 3rd leader at a robbery, leaving him for the police.

The Five Points Gang was the other big gang around the turn of the century. Mortal enemies of the Eastman Gang, The Five Points Gang was more like how we think of the Mafia, many famous gangsters were in the Five Points Gang in their earlier years. Al Capone, later to be leader of the Chicago Outfit, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, said to be the most powerful criminal in American history, and many other smaller names. The Five Points Gang rose quickly to power due to their support of corrupt politicians. Eventually the Tammany Hall officials, the corrupt party at that time, stopped helping Eastman and only supported The Five Points Gang. This led to the slight rise over the Eastman Gang for the Five Pointers.

The constantly raging war between the Five Pointers and Eastmen led to many casualties, and many huge battles. One of these battles in particular consisted of over 50 members on each side fighting in the middle of New York City. This particular event happened because a Five Pointer shot Monk Eastman in the stomach, he survived, and then an Eastman killed a Five Pointer. At one point the war was so bad that officials told Paul Kelly, leader of the Five Pointers, and Monk Eastman, Eastman leader, to fight it out in a boxing match, winner takes all. This meant whoever lost forfeited everything their gang owned, to the other, no one wanted to lose this. The boxing match starts and Kelly looks much better than Eastman, Kelly was a boxer so he knows what he is doing, but Eastman is a big guy. Eventually the match had lasted over two hours and was declared a tie and the war raged on.

The were many other smaller gangs, pickpocket groups, all focused on smaller crimes. 

These groups were very smart however, one method used by pickpockets was to get one 

member to ride a bike into a pedestrian and start an  argument, as the argument drew a 

crowd the other members would pickpocket the crowd and would then go to their 

headquarters to divide the money. They didn’t always do it themselves though, one boy 

trained his dog to snatch purses and run them around the corner where he would be 

waiting.

Paul Kelly

Monk Eastman

Five Points, NYC

Five Points Gang

Monk Eastman

The Encyclopedia of American Crime (book)
General information on types of crime and big names in the business 

Encyclopedia of Organized Crime in the United States (book)

General information on crime of the era.

Immigration, Crime, and Incarceration in Early Twentieth-Century America

More racial facts that showed more about the crime wave rising with immigrants

The Gangs of New York (book)
General knowledge, but more specifically in New York

The Mafia Encyclopedia (book)
Although this was more about later things, it was useful for finding the transition from gang to mafia

The Apaches of New York (book)
Interesting view on literature and crime in the same

Yakey Yakes Shoot Cherry Hill Gang Member (NYT Article, 1905)
A news article about a gang shooting

Round-Up Gang Members (NYT Article, 1905)
A news article about stopping gangs

Migration

Today I learned about many things including migration and race, this was very interesting and some things were surprising. I saw a lady that was white as cotton on this test thing but apparently she has African ancestry on both sides. It was also cool to see all the weird migration patters throughout the world, this was very interesting.

Philanthropy

Philanthropy is a good thing in concept but often seems to be manipulated, but it necessary for a lot of things that we cherish so I appreciate that some more fortunate members of society invest in others. Personally though, if I were rich, I would not be giving away any large percentage of my wealth.

Success

Success, there are lots of necessary factors but the most important is skill, some people are just born with a gift for something, hard work helps, but without some skill, you will never reach the level of a skilled hard working person. Next comes opportunity, sometimes if you are born in a certain family the universe will align you with someone or something to bring you success. Hard work is a necessary factor, you aren't going to get anywhere without working at it unless it is just handed to you, which is a very slim chance. Lastly, luck, you need some luck but opportunity is kind of the same thing so luck on it's own isn't a huge deal.

Skill
Opportunity
Hark Work
Luck

Business

Some of the top design firms work with some of the top companies in the world because without a good logo, you can't have a good company. Turner Duckworth is one of the leading design firms in the world, working with clients such as Coca-Cola, Levi's, Amazon, and Metallica. The firm has won more than 200 awards and even won a Grammy, like I didn't even know you could win a Grammy for something like that, but they won it for their design on Metallica's 2008 album Death Magnetic.

Deep Thinking Quote

"Our use of social media for news is selective and intentional so that we so that we may tend to remain interested only in things we are already interested in. On the other hand, professional news outlets, like newspapers, expose readers to information on a broad range of topics. This helps me to see what other people are interested in, or think is important."

Indians in the news

September 27, 1879

Olden Times

A fight on September 14th broke out between some Indians and some young white men from Dallas and Fort Worth, 7 of the white men were killed, and although there isn't much information to go on, it sure seems like the Indian's faults, the information all comes from one of the white kids whose friends were killed

Newspaper

Newspaper homework

Definition: a printed publication (usually issued daily or weekly) consisting of folded unstapled sheets and containing news, feature articles, advertisements, and correspondence.

Newspapers first came into existence in London, the first is believed to have been titled the Oxford Gazette in 1665 and it later turned into the London Gazette when it was brought back into London by the king after the plague.

The first newspaper in America was called the Boston News-Letter and was first published in 1704. It mostly contained European politics and one of it's most popular stories was the tale of Blackbeard.

The New York Times is a very popular newspaper based in New York, and is right now mostly covering the election, water on Mars, and SAT news.

Newspaper of records, or newspapers of public record are usually printed by the government and is used to publish public notices. The New York Times was the first newspaper of record, designated in 1913, now the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post are all newspapers of record.

Newspapers are different than social media as they don't update constantly and take a week to get the new news, this is different than today where you just look every five seconds and something new is up.

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Savages

In this activity we defined savage and savagery, defining respectively as "A member of a people regarded as primitive or uncivilized." and "The condition of being primitive or uncivilized"

Textbook reference

The fact that in the definition savagery is called a condition is terrible, if you haven't been educated or raised in a certain way, that does not make you sick or weird, it just means you weren't raised the same. Indians were described by whites as tall, straight and well formed. Their skin was cinnamon or copper brown, reddish hue, coarse black hair, small snakey eyes, they sometimes painted their faces and bodies with hideous devices. Also they recognize that they are Native Americans, and still call them Indians, but usually they don't even have the decency to do that, in this old textbook they are usually referred to as "savages". If this was my textbook, and they only source of information I had, I would think Indians were crazy people, I would believe that they were savages that just attack everything they see, but luckily I have greater, less biased, sources of information.

1st Quarter Reflections

Ben Justice

                This year I have been introduced to many new things, and also reintroduced to some things. When we were talking about slavery and the Civil War and such, I really thought I knew more than I did. It was actually a lot more gruesome and terrible then I had previously been taught. This makes me feel as if History as a class could be very interesting, although it has been interesting in the past, I believe finding truth in things you thought you knew is very entertaining. I am also very excited to learn about World War II and some other was such as Vietnam and World War I.

 I think one of my areas of strength is my essays; I have grown a new enjoyment in writing essays on topics of interest.  The topics of the West were also very interesting, I thought it was cool and we learned about some gnarly stuff. I’m pretty stoked to see what else you have in store for us because so far this class

 Has been a blast

 From the past

 With a mass of information

And my brain’s been saturatin’

 This new found knowledge of the history’s many mysteries.  

Native American Stickball

Lacrosse was originally called stickball

Played in the Lawrence Valley by the Algonquian Tribe

Later followed by tribes in the east and around the great lakes

Played over several days

The fields were huge open areas, sometimes miles long

It is estimated that games consisted of 100 to 100,000 players, at one time!!

There was only one rule, the ball can’t touch your hand, there were no boundaries or anything

At the start, the ball was thrown into the air and players would race to get it

Originally the balls were wood, but were then replaces with fur wrapped in deerskin

It was played to toughen up young warriors, and recreation and religious reasons

Jean de Brebeuf was a missionary that saw the game being played and named it lacrosse

Interest in lacrosse began to spread in Canada Dr William George Beers started a club, made rules, reduced players, and redefined the stick

By 1860 lacrosse was Canada’s national game and was even played for Queen Victoria, who said “The game is very pretty to watch.”

In 1904 the game was played in the Olympics

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This is a picture of an original lacrosse stick, notice it is all one piece of wood, and there is only a top and one side to the net, one side is empty

This is a modern day lacrosse stick, separate head and stick, and netting, the ball is also rubber now

Sorce

Ben Justice

US History Lawson

            By watching movies, with at least some historical accuracy, we can see much more easily the horrors and triumphs of the past. In the case of Glory and 12 Years a Slave, these are based off true, primary sources, Glory from Captain Shaw’s letters, and 12 Years a Slave from a book written by Solomon Northup, a true victim of kidnapping and slavery. Reading about historical events is one thing, but seeing them, is a whole different story, it can open your mind to truly seeing something, instead of just making something up in your mind to match words on a page.

            Glory and 12 Years a Slave have both received enormous amounts of awards, as well as reviews stating that they are very historically accurate films. While no, the movies aren’t word for word, they give you a very clear picture of the seriousness, in some matters, such as slavery it gave me a whole different insight after actually seeing only some of the horrors that back then, happened on the daily. 12 Years a Slave showed that although not everyone was a bad guy, there weren’t really any good guys either, no hero fighting for justice, just some men not quite as bad as others. 12 Years a Slave didn’t hold back on the violence either, which for a classroom might make you think it is less acceptable, but if you really want to show students the monstrosity, slavery, you are going to have to show some violence, making this movie, more gruesome, but also, more accurate. In Glory, the filmmakers did loads of research on how large groups of blacks felt about the Civil War and the controversial decisions made to let, or not let, blacks fight in the war. The filmmakers of Glory then displayed those stereotypes in the characters, leading to an amazing amount of accurate opinions and views.

            These movies aren’t only historically accurate, because believe it or not, people now-a-days don’t always like straight up documentaries. 12 Years a Slave for example, had a 20 million dollar budget, then at the box office alone, brought in 181 million dollars. These movies are also very enjoyable to watch, they are Hollywood style movies, with historical aspects, too. The fact that they are high quality movies will engage the students, making them want to watch the movies, and by doing so, make them learn something! I’m not saying that no one wants to learn, but I am saying that everyone loves a good movie, and if there’s some learning in there too, what’s not to love. Considering the success of the films, making them good movies, and the accuracy of the films, making them appropriate for the classroom, it is, in my opinion, a good valuable resource to use for research on certain topics.

            Why did these directors, Edward Zwick and Steve McQueen, tell these stories though, was it just for the money or was it for a deeper meaning, if it was just for the money then the films may not be as accurate because the filmmaker might not care, but in these movies the directors actually put time and effort into making these movies enjoyable to watch, and historically accurate. Edward Zwick said that he made this movie because he liked the story and wanted others to hear it as well, he didn’t do it for anyone else, he said, he just liked the story, and he liked making movies, so he would make a movie about it.

            Altogether I think some movies are valid sources to get some, not all of course, information about historical events that are more easily depicted on screen, rather than in a book, seeing is much more powerful than hearing or reading something. Some movies can be very useful aids in studying some subjects, making them a useful tool in the classroom.

12 Years Awards

12 Years goals

Glory Goals

12 Years Accuracy

Glory Accuracy

Glory Awards

12 Years Success

Glory Success

12 Years Rating

Glory Rating

Practicing incorporating a quotation

This a very deep movie, about glory in the midst of death and loss, as one critic says, "It is through defeat and death in the regiment that the nation experiences a new birth of freedom." This quote shows that these men aren't coming home to celebrate with their nation, but it is because of them that the nation can celebrate.

Paraphrasing and quotations are very useful literary devices, quotes to display a very strong idea by another, and paraphrasing to give the general meaning of an important excerpt.

This is what Mrs. Lawson wanted me to learn today:

• Only use a quote when it adds power and style to my writing.
• Always make it clear, from context, that I understand the full meaning of the quote
•  Whether I quote of paraphrase, always be transparent about the source and how I’m using it.
•  If I use another author’s exact words or phrases to any extent, I have to use quotation marks and give credit
•  If I use another author’s presentation of facts or ideas, but put their ideas in my own words, I better have a good reason for doing that and I MUST give credit.
•  Hyperlinking is so easy, there is no excuse for not being transparent about my sources.

Paraphrase

This is an excerpt taken from an article on the Civil War movie "Glory","The decision to end the movie with the failed assault at Wagner solidifies this progressive theme, which links the men to one another and, supposedly, the goal of the United States by the middle of the war. The final scenes depict the grim reality of the battlefield, including shoe-less dead black soldiers, and a mass grave in which both Shaw and his men are buried. As the movie ends the viewer is told that the performance of the 54th Massachusetts led to the recruitment of upwards of 180,000 men and that President Lincoln credited these men with turning the tide of war."

After reading this article, I found some interesting information on the movie Glory and the Civil War.
The choice to end Glory with an unsuccessful attempt to break Wagner strengthens this theme, this brings the men closer together and, apparently, the goal of the United States by the the time the war was half over. The ending scenes show the gruesome slaughter of the field of battle, including black soldiers with nothing on their feet, and no individual graves, but piles of bodies in a hole, including Shaw and his soldiers. In the ending scene viewers are told that unit of men indirectly lead to 180,000 men signing up for the union and also President Lincoln saying that these men changed the fate of the war for the Union

Empathy VS. Sympathy

Empathy is like putting yourself in someone else's shoes, having never gone through it, but using critical thinking to help yourself understand.

Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone, or comforting them even if you aren't putting yourself in their shoes.

It's like a prisoner on death row, I've never been in that situation and I do not feel sorry for someone, but I can put myself in their shoes.

If we can't empathize then it is going to be really hard to understand slavery, the holocaust, and other things that we don't have a close relation to, but with empathy, we can.