It’s prohibition-era Chicago, and Al Capone and his gang boss, John Torrio, stand to make millions off of bootlegging. As long as crime can be organized along professional boundaries, there should be no need for violence. So why, as Prohibition wore on, did things get bloodier and bloodier? This week, Dan and Alana dig into The North Side Mob, and how their uniquely divided power structure led to an increasingly violent fight for territory.

Sources

The Man Who Got Away: The Bugs Moran Story by Rose Keefe

The Wicked City: Chicago From Kenna to Capone by Curt Johnson with R. Craig Sautter

Al Capone’s Beer Wars: A Complete History of Organized Crime in Chicago During Prohibition by John Binder

Gangland Chicago: Criminality and Lawlessness in the Windy City by Richard C. Lindberg

Prohibition Gangsters: The Rise and Fall of a Bad Generation by Marc Mappen

Al Capone: His Life, Legacy, and Legend by Deirdre Bair

The Outfit: The Role of Chicago's Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America by Gus Russo

Mr. Capone: The Real - and Complete - Story of Al Capone, by Robert J. Schoenberg

Capone: The Life and World of Al Capone by John Kobler

Capone: The Man and the Era by Laurence Bergreen

Newspapers including The Daily Worker, The Chicago Daily News, The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Record-Herald, The Chicago Sun-Times.

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The Outfit is a production of Higher Ground and Headgum.

Hosted by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Executive Produced by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Produced by Julia Murray

Production Assistance by Franchesca Diaz and CJ Archerd

Sound Design and Engineering by Ryan Kozlowski and Andrew Eapen

Show theme is Bittersweet Defeat by OTE

Like the show? Rate The Outfit on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review.

Follow Headgum on Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok. 

Advertise on The Outfit via Gumball.fm

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Description:

This week, on the next installment of "Al Capone All-American," Dan and Alana turn to the greatest gift Al Capone could have asked for on his 21st birthday: the national prohibition on the sale and manufacture of alcohol. From the Ku Klux Klan, to poisoned rotgut liquor, to the singularly forgotten political genius behind the law, prohibition would come to define an entire era of American history--a story freshly relevant today.

Sources

Historian Mario Gomes's excellent website, My Al Capone Museum (https://www.myalcaponemuseum.com/)

The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State by Lisa McGirr

Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition by Karen Blumenthal

Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America by Edward Behr

Smashing the Liquor Machine: A Global History of Prohibition by Mark Lawrence Schrad

One Hundred Percent American: The Rebirth and Decline of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s by Thomas R. Pegram

Prohibition: A Very Short Introduction by W.J. Rorabaugh

Alcoholics Anonymous

Al Capone’s Beer Wars: A Complete History of Organized Crime in Chicago During Prohibition by John Binder

The Outfit: The Role of Chicago's Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America by Gus Russo

Gangland Chicago: Criminality and Lawlessness in the Windy City by Richard C. Lindberg

Prohibition Gangsters: The Rise and Fall of a Bad Generation by Marc Mappen

The Wicked City: Chicago From Kenna to Capone by Curt Johnson with R. Craig Sautter

Mr. Capone: The Real - and Complete - Story of Al Capone, by Robert J. Schoenberg

Young Al Capone: The Untold Story of Scarface in New York, 1899-1925 by William and John Balsamo

Capone: The Life and World of Al Capone by John Kobler

Capone: The Man and the Era by Laurence Bergreen

Newspapers and Magazines: The Buffalo News, The Daily Item, the Springfield News-Sun, the Hartford Courant, Los Angeles Times, Washington Daily News, Brooklyn Daily Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune.

---

The Outfit is a production of Higher Ground and Headgum.

Hosted by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Executive Produced by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Produced by Julia Murray

Production Assistance by CJ Archerd and Franchesca Diaz

Sound Design and Engineering by Ryan Kozlowski and Andrew Eapen

Show theme is Bittersweet Defeat by OTE

Like the show? Rate The Outfit on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review.

Follow Headgum on Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok. 

Advertise on The Outfit via Gumball.fm

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this, the second episode of Outfit’s limited series "Al Capone All-American," Dan and Alana learn how the young Scarface, now on the cusp of adulthood, found himself drifting westward toward the city of destiny: Chicago. Under the influence of two underworld mentors with competing philosophies, who will Al Capone align himself with as Prohibition rears its head?

Sources

Historian Mario Gomes's excellent website, My Al Capone Museum (https://www.myalcaponemuseum.com/)

Al Capone: His Life, Legacy, and Legend by Deirdre Bair

Al Capone’s Beer Wars: A Complete History of Organized Crime in Chicago During Prohibition by John Binder

The Outfit: The Role of Chicago's Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America by Gus Russo

Gangland Chicago: Criminality and Lawlessness in the Windy City by Richard C. Lindberg

Prohibition Gangsters: The Rise and Fall of a Bad Generation by Marc Mappen

The Wicked City: Chicago From Kenna to Capone by Curt Johnson with R. Craig Sautter

Mr. Capone: The Real - and Complete - Story of Al Capone, by Robert J. Schoenberg

Young Al Capone: The Untold Story of Scarface in New York, 1899-1925 by William and John Balsamo

Capone: The Life and World of Al Capone by John Kobler

Capone: The Man and the Era by Laurence Bergreen

Newspapers including The Brooklyn Daily Times, The New York Daily News, The New York Times, The New York Herald, The Chicago Daily News, The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Record-Herald, The Chicago Sun-Times.

---

The Outfit is a production of Higher Ground and Headgum.

Hosted by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Executive Produced by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Produced by Julia Murray

Production Assistance by Franchesca Diaz and CJ Archerd

Sound Design and Engineering by Ryan Kozlowski and Andrew Eapen

Show theme is Bittersweet Defeat by OTE

Like the show? Rate The Outfit on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review.

Follow Headgum on Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok. 

Advertise on The Outfit via Gumball.fm

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Before he was Al Capone — the Scarface of popular myth — he was Alphonse Capone. In this inaugural episode of The Outfit’s first ever limited series, Dan and Alana take a trip back in time to dissect the man that made the man. Where a Brooklyn-born child of immigrants, under the tutelage of one very sinister Coney Island mentor, began his journey from a lowly shoeshiner to dominating the Jazz Age so thoroughly that he still remains synonymous with organized crime today.

Sources:

Historian Mario Gomes's excellent website, My Al Capone Museum (https://www.myalcaponemuseum.com/)

The Mammoth Book of Journalism by Jon E. Lewis

Al Capone’s Beer Wars: A Complete History of Organized Crime in Chicago During Prohibition by John Binder

Mr. Capone: The Real - and Complete - Story of Al Capone, by Robert J. Schoenberg

Young Al Capone: The Untold Story of Scarface in New York, 1899-1925 by William and John Balsamo

Capone: The Life and World of Al Capone by John Kobler

Capone: The Man and the Era by Laurence Bergreen

Newspapers including The Brooklyn Daily Times, The New York Daily News, The New York Times, The New York Herald.

---

The Outfit is a production of Higher Ground and Headgum.

Hosted by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Executive Produced by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Produced by Julia Murray

Production Assistance by CJ Archerd and Franchesca Diaz

Sound Design and Engineering by Ryan Kozlowski and Andrew Eapen

Show theme is Bittersweet Defeat by OTE

Like the show? Rate The Outfit on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review.

Follow Headgum on Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok. 

Advertise on The Outfit via Gumball.fm

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's a Very Outfit Christmas this holiday season, as Dan and Alana bring you their own version of yuletide cheer: 'twas (not quite) the night before Christmas 1977, when a crew of burglars, stung over their own gift-giving, played Santa in the home of Outfit overlord Tony Accardo…and ended up on a permanent naughty list. Grab some cookies, pour some eggnog, and settle in for the bloodiest tale in Christmas history.

Sources:

Hillel Levin, "Boosting The Big Tuna," Playboy, 2007.

The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Reader, Chicago Magazine, Time Magazine.

William Roemer, Accardo: The Genuine Godfather.

Jeff Coen, Family Secrets: The Case That Crippled The Chicago Mob.

Fred Pascente & Fred Reaves, Mob Cop: My Life of Crime in the Chicago Police Department.

---

The Outfit is a production of Higher Ground and Headgum.

Hosted by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Executive Produced by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Produced by Julia Murray

Production Assistance by Franchesca Diaz and CJ Archerd

Sound Design and Engineering by Ryan Kozlowski and Andrew Eapen

Show theme is Bittersweet Defeat by OTE

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, Dan and Alana take on an age-old mystery: why are straight men so obsessed with Goodfellas? They’re joined by Allie Kahan, content manager at Headgum, for a deep-dive into their favorite scenes, classic Scorsese-isms, and the surprisingly queer heart of the mob-movie canon.

---

The Outfit is a production of Higher Ground and Headgum.

Hosted by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Executive Produced by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Produced by Julia Murray

Production Assistance by CJ Archerd and Franchesca Diaz

Sound Design and Engineering by Ryan Kozlowski and Andrew Eapen

Show theme is Bittersweet Defeat by OTE

Like the show? Rate The Outfit on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review.

Follow Headgum on Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok. 

Advertise on The Outfit via Gumball.fm

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, Dan travels back to the land of his birth--Long Island, New York--for a fragrant stroll past one of the Mafia's biggest moneymakers: garbage. As he and Alana find out, the garbage industry was a critical source of money to New York's Five Families, the cost passed on to everyone else. Until one honest garbage hauler--Robert Kubecka--decided to do something about this stranglehold, in a saga which would dominate Long Island news for years.

Sources

"Garbage, Dentists, and Mobsters – Resource Capital Group’s LCN Connections," Mafia Book Reviews, 2022.

Alan A. Block, Space, Time, and Organized Crime.

Alan A. Block & Frank R. Scarpitti, Poison for Profit: The Mafia and Toxic Waste in America.

New York Newsday, New York Daily News, New York Post, The New York Times.

---

The Outfit is a production of Higher Ground and Headgum.

Hosted by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Executive Produced by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Produced by Julia Murray

Production Assistance by Franchesca Diaz and CJ Archerd

Sound Design and Engineering by Ryan Kozlowski and Andrew Eapen

Show theme is Bittersweet Defeat by OTE

Like the show? Rate The Outfit on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review.

Follow Headgum on Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok. 

Advertise on The Outfit via Gumball.fm

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this week's episode of The Outfit, Dan and Alana are joined by Misha Brown, podcaster and author of upcoming new book, Be Your Own Bestie, to dish on A&E's Growing Up Gotti: The 2004 reality hit following Victoria Gotti and her three teenage sons. From dating to daddy issues, our hosts take a look at all the baggage that comes with being a nepo-mobster.

Check out: Be Your Own Bestie: A No Nonsense Guide to Changing the Way you Treat Yourself by Misha Brown

---

The Outfit is a production of Higher Ground and Headgum.

Hosted by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Executive Produced by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Produced by Julia Murray

Production Assistance by Franchesca Diaz and CJ Archerd

Sound Design and Engineering by Ryan Kozlowski and Andrew Eapen

Show theme is Bittersweet Defeat by OTE

Like the show? Rate The Outfit on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review.

Follow Headgum on Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok. 

Advertise on The Outfit via Gumball.fm

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this episode, Dan travels back to the auld sod to regale Alana with the story of a vicious crime lord with two wives and a weakness for desserts: Martin "The General" Cahill. A product of the Dublin slums and upwardly mobile gangster, Cahill’s rise and fall is a dark reflection of Ireland’s own turbulent history.

Sources:

We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland by Fintan O'Toole

The General and Evil Empire: The Irish Mob and the Execution of Journalist Veronica Guerin by Paul Williams

A Secret History of the IRA by Ed Moloney

Newspapers and Magazines: Hot Press, Dublin Evening Herald, Irish Independent, Sunday Independent, The Star (Dublin).

---

The Outfit is a production of Higher Ground and Headgum.

Hosted by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Executive Produced by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Produced by Julia Murray

Production Assistance by Franchesca Diaz and CJ Archerd

Sound Design and Engineering by Ryan Kozlowski and Andrew Eapen

Show theme is Bittersweet Defeat by OTE

Like the show? Rate The Outfit on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review.

Follow Headgum on Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok. 

Advertise on The Outfit via Gumball.fm

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

1912, Ragtime-era New York. NYPD Lieutenant Charles Becker, celebrity cop, stands accused of a shocking crime: orchestrating the murder of gambler Herman Rosenthal, whose squealing to the press threatened to expose systemic police corruption. In this week's episode, Dan and Alana weigh the evidence in the case of one of the few NYPD officers to ever take a trip to death row. 

Sources:

Satan's Circus Murder, Vice, Police Corruption, and New York's Trial of the Century by Mike Dash

The Execution of Officer Becker: The Murder of a Gambler, The Trial of a Cop, and the Birth of Organized Crime by Stanley Cohen

The Becker Scandal: A Time Remembered by Vina Delmar

The Bowery Boys, “Case Files of the New York Police Department 1800-1915” podcast episode

Newspapers and magazines: American Heritage, Crime Magazine, New York Sun, The New York Times, New York Evening World, New York Tribune.

---

The Outfit is a production of Higher Ground and Headgum.

Hosted by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Executive Produced by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Produced by Julia Murray

Production Assistance by Franchesca Diaz and CJ Archerd

Sound Design and Engineering by Ryan Kozlowski and Andrew Eapen

Show theme is Bittersweet Defeat by OTE

Like the show? Rate The Outfit on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review.

Follow Headgum on Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok. 

Advertise on The Outfit via Gumball.fm

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.