Membership charts online

Informer's longtime columnist Bill Feather is bringing his Mafia membership charts online. The charts provide data - birth, death, aliases, immigration, family relationships, active eras, etc. - on documented and suspected Mafiosi from crime families across the United States.

Visit: http://mafiamembershipcharts.blogspot.co.uk/

Book Notes and Bookstore

Found a few spare moments and made some long overdue additions to the website's Book Notes and Bookstore pages. The Book Notes page (click here to visit) now contains entries for 39 crime history titles released since the summer of 2005. The Bookstore (click here to visit) features more than 40 selections available for purchase through Amazon.com.

Profile: Frank Bonomo

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

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):

What do we know about Frankie Yale?

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.

 

Valachi's story in his own words

We have begun the process of making the autobiographical notes of Joseph Valachi, a manuscript titled, The Real Thing, available online for the free access of those interested in the subject. The manuscript is the foundation of the 1968 Peter Maas book, The Valachi Papers. In it, Valachi recalls his early personal life, his career as a burglar in New York City, his participation in the Castellammarese War, his induction into the American Mafia and a great deal more.

To this point, The Real Thing has been out of reach for most. To our knowledge, it has never been published. The original is held in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. Copies can be obtained, but with the document running more than a thousand pages long, obtaining copies can be prohibitively expensive.

Our collection of The Real Thing pages is far from complete. We are hopeful that researchers who have obtained portions of the document will decide to share them.

Our thanks to crime historian Alex Hortis for his assistance in this project.

Visit: http://mafiahistory.us/a023/therealthing.htm

Bookstore updated

The American Mafia website's bookstore has been redesigned. The online store - an affiliate of Amazon.com - features a selection of books relating to various areas of organized crime history. It contains a number of new releases as well as some underworld history classics. There is also a search function that enables visitors to locate books dealing with their specific interests.

The bookstore can be reached by clicking this link.

Book Notes reformatted

The Book Notes section of the website has been reformatted. Older links on the page have been repaired. And some distracting widgets have been removed. The page should have a more organized look to it than it previously did.

It has been awhile since book reviews have been added to the page. I have a bunch to add and should begin doing that shortly.