Material presented on The American Mafia history website (http://mafiahistory.us and http://www.onewal.com/) was gathered through decades of research into the history of American organized crime. A childhood interest in the subject blossomed into a full-time obsession in the late 1990s, when I began organizing collected newspaper clippings, notebook pages and index cards. That effort gave rise to this website in September 2002. The website is more of a process than it is a document. Very often new historical data becomes available and causes old assumptions to be revised or abandoned. Over the past few years, many underworld legends appearing on these pages have given way to more defensible statements. And other revisions are sure to be made in the months and years ahead. It is a pleasure to be able to share my interest with you. I welcome your emailed comments, questions, criticisms. I hope that the site is useful to you and that you check in from time to time to see what is new. Copyright © 2011, Thomas Hunt. All rights reserved.




Saturday, October 19, 2013

Profile: Frank Bonomo

Just added to the website:
J. Dugard's profile of little-known but influential Bonanno Crime Family member Frank Bonomo.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

What do we know about Frankie Yale?

It's a question that I've asked myself quite a bit over the years. It seems everyone who has written about the American Mafia has written something about Brooklyn gang boss Frankie Yale. But most of that material seems based on rumor or conjecture. Factual details about Yale's life and career are sorely lacking. It seemed time to take stock of what we actually know about Yale. After looking through the material I had accumulated on him, I assembled this article for the website (and linked to it from the Articles menu and the Who Was Who menu):

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Additional mob biographies

The launch of a new book (DiCarlo: Buffalo's First Family of Crime by Mike Tona and myself) and a new website (buffalomob.com) has taken considerable time and energy. However, I've managed to have that work contribute to the offerings here on The American Mafia site. A number of biographies have been added to The American Mafia collection. These link to bios created for the Buffalo-oriented site. To date, the list includes:
  • Bonasera, Cassandro (1897-1972) - Brooklyn
  • Cammilleri, John (1911-1974)
  • Carlisi, Rosario "Roy" (1909-1980)
  • Clark, "Jew Minnie" (1887-1959)
  • Crocevera, Isadoro (1873-1920) - New York City and elsewhere
  • Fino, Joseph (1915-1984)
  • Frangiamore, Salvatore (1905-1999)
  • Magaddino, Antonino (1897-1971)
  • Magaddino, Stefano (1891-1974)
  • Montana, John (1893-1964)
  • Natarelli, Pasquale (1910-1993)
  • Pieri, Salvatore "Sam" (1911-1981)
  • Randaccio, Frederico (1907-2004)
  • Sansanese, Daniel Sr. (1908-1975)
  • Tronolone, John "Peanuts" (1910-1991) - Cleveland
Visit the Who Was Who page of the site to access these and other bios. Please note, the active biography links have birth-death years after the names (others aren't online yet). Those with asterisks are the new ones that link to the Buffalo site.