The Man himself: Bryan Burrough

Bryan Burrough

 

With all else said about this through his literature and the short escapade I got to present in only a short four blogs allotted. There are a million other topics within his book that could be covered in his mesmerizing journey through the past.

Bryan Burrough an American journalist born just North of Austin in Temple, TX on August, 13 1961. He attended college at University of Missouri in 1983 where he received several awards for his distinguished writing and journalism during college. These awards garnished him to his several writings of books later, beginning in 1990: Barbarians at the Gate (1990), Vendetta (1992), Dragon Fly (1998), Public Enemies (2004), and his most recent book The Big Rich (2009). Inspired by real life events al his novels receive praise for his close attention to detail, all details. His book that I was inspired from reading Public Enemies was a "New York Times best selling panoramic exploration into the birth of the FBI". Burrough researched in-depth amounts for numerous years, using the FBI historical database and newly released files for his information in a play by play, and date by date sequential book. The nonstop action thriller" delivers a rollicking, rat-a-tat ride" that was developed for a screen write into the cinema in 2009. 

This history that comes to life out of the book jammed full of a cultural, historical, crime novel takes reader for exhilarating experience from start to finish. Burrough has several notes through-out book that lets me conclude on the what, how and why the Federal Bureau of Investigations was created and its impact on generations up till now. Also the true violence and mass murdering that took place throughout the era and hopefully as people say that "history repeats itself, for our safety and the safety of others let’s hope not. We will depend on the avid readers of this book and this genre to protect us along with Bryan Burrough as our director like Hoover.

Burrough is currently still writing and coming up on the age of 40 in August. Hopefully after this enlightenment into the past through Burrough's novel it will allow to exhibit that "rat-a-tat ride". It might not be a leisurely walk down to the corner in sub zero temperatures, but you will be right in the action. Until you remember that you have your nose buried into his novel.

Source Citation:

Eaton, Lance. "Burrough, Bryan. Public Enemies." Library Journal 1 Oct. 2009: 47. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 11 May 2011

"Bryan Burrough." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 11 May 2011.

Picture Citation:

"Google Images." Google. Thedailybeast.com. Web. 11 May 2011. <http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.tdbimg.com/files/2009/01/26/img-author-photo---bryan-burrough_125530516814.jpg>.

We Are to Protect and Serve

The beaconing force mentioned in the other blogs just did not appear over night it was through time and dedication and the individual who began what we now know as the F.B.I., a man named John Edgar Hoover the director of the Bureau. Hoover was already major player with the anti-communist era America was in to include the Red Scare with A. Mitchell Palmer. Working under Palmer, “J. Edgar Hoover and other leading anticommunists may well have sincerely believed in 1919 that government had to guard against the danger", but Hoover was only setting himself up for a greater project in the war against crime in the 1930's. "It would be fought not by soldiers but by another branch of he federal government, an obscure arm of the Justice Department" (Borrough 7). This era was looked upon as the wild wild west of gangsters over run by corruption and bootleggers! Only about eight years prior to Pearl Harbor, the American homeland defense know at this time as Justice Department was in over their heads with criminal persons; Machine Gun Kelley, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, Bonnie and Clyde, and the Barker-Karpis Gang just for the prominent notorious criminal factions. The Only thing standing between justice and corruption were the titles and the presence of who and what the Justice of Department of Investigation was and what they wanted to achieve. It remained the Justice Department's Bureau of Investigations until 1935 they changed named to Federal Bureau of Investigations. At that point leaps and bounds for the group grew due to the FBI training facility and now able to be armed and have protective equipment against the gang retaliations. To help the bureau facilitate their program when “Between 1932 and 1935, when J. Edgar Hoover and the federal Division of Investigation carried out a nationwide campaign against bandit crime, gun moils were arrested, interrogated, and often publicly tried as accomplices to federal crimes". His men lived with a fear of Hoover he ran his offices by a strict code of rules, there was no lackadaisical acts to happen within the bureau. The men had a strict dress code and were liable for random dress code inspections, also the men all fell into a Hoover appearance between age twenty-five and thirty-five dressed to impress with law degrees and carried themselves well. 

  One of the several accomplishments that Hoover did that built his name and the agency was to include to bringing down of the gangsters threat directly through him or indirectly through police. Hoover was accredited for his undertakings then once the named was changed in 1935 it gave Hoover access to what he would need to complete the "Public Enemy Era". The closure of this era was during 1935-1936. Some of the dominant forces in capturing or killing the American gangsters were: Special Agent Melvin Purvis who primarily over John Dillinger case and few others, Gus T. Buster Jones an ex-Ranger and cowboy figure pursuing Baby Face Nelson, and lastly Connelley chasing the Karpis gang for there well plotted kidnappings.

Picture Cititaions:

(http://javascriptkit.com), JavaScript Kit. Plaques and Patches - Military Plaques|Emblems|Seals|Insignia|Desk Name Plates|Dolphin Plaques|Wings|Plankowner|Law Enforcement|Government. Http://www.plaquesandpatches.com. Web. 10 May 2011. http://www.plaquesandpatches.com/.

"Google Images." Google. Http://clevelandcentennial.blogspot.com. Web. 11 May 2011. <http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://davidhansen.org/centennial/FBI-director-J-Edgar-Hoover.jpg>.



Drawing of Hoover with his eyes down the sights of the most popular gun Thompson.



Works Cited:

Lichtman, Robert. "Louis Budenz, the FBI, and the "list of 400 concealed Communists": an extended tale of McCarthy-era informing." American Communist History 3.1 (2004): 25-54. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 10 May 2011.

Burrough, Bryan. "A Prelude to War." Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34. New York: Penguin, 2004. 7+. Print.

Potter, Claire Bond. "`I'll go the limit and then some': Gun molls, desire, and danger in the 1930s." Feminist Studies 21.1 (1995): 41. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. Web. 10 May 2011.

Fischer, Nick. "The Founders of American Anti-communism." American Communist History 5.1 (2006): 67-101. America: History and Life with Full Text. EBSCO. Web. 10 May 2011

Bonnie and Clyde

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are another set of the prevalent bank robbers during the "public enemy" era during of the 1930's. Bonnie born in East Texas in a tiny city named Rowena. Clyde on the other hand still from Texas had a different background and upbringing about 45 minutes South of Dallas in Ellis County. The two with their string of small bank robberies built their name for because for one, Bonnie and her sex appeal downplayed the media attention and she kept reality in perspective for Clyde Barrow. In addition to them being born in Texas the two had a lot of activity and travels in the state due to family for the two of them like "cousins of Clyde's who lived on farms deep in East Texas pines"(Burrough 166). Between there several, up to nine robberies, the two had numerous shoot outs and killings of sheriffs’ that spread out between Texas up to Iowa. Bonnie and Clyde had several instances of fleeing from what seemed as the grim reamer awaiting them on there death beds. It wasn’t until several more close encounters and Hoover  with the F.B.I. declaring Frank Hamer to soley dedicate his time and search to Bonnie and Clyde. "Everyone in Texas knew of Frank Hamer. Hamer was a Lone Star Legend, a cantankerous fourty-nine-year-old former Ranger" (Borrough 228), the adventurous search lingered on for time as he drew closer and closer to Bonnie and Clyde. As Frank was in search of the two Bonnie and Clyde their lives were growing shorter by the day as they scooted from city to city and state to state. They called a abandoned home in a Parrish of Louisiana home, the only home they ever knew as there own. In the midst of driving on the back-roads one late night "Bonnie and Clyde were shot down by lawmen in an ambush on May 23, 1934, in rural northwest Louisiana. They died almost literally in one another's arms", this was the end of another fearful clan. The Federal Bureau was slowly eliminating the targets entagled with the criminal wave, hence building a name that would forever last as a dominant force. The image on top shows the ambush captured shortly after their deaths with over 150 bullet holes penetrated into the car and rolled 30 feet into a ditch. Bonnie Parker literally leaning over onto the disarranged body of Clyde Barrow as spectators were said to try to cut to cut Clyde’s ear off and another trying to remove a lock of Bonnie’s hair.

Source Citation 

BROWDER, LAURA. "Bonnie and Clyde (Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow)." Encyclopedia of the Great Depression. Ed. Robert S. McElvaine. Vol. 1. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004. 105-107. Gal

e Virtual Reference Library. Web. 10 May 2011.

Document URL
http://ezp.tccd.edu:2255/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CCX3404500072&v=2.1&u=txshracd2560&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w

Image Source:

"Google Images." Google. Http://www.jalopyjournal.com. Web. 10 May 2011. http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVennLzBwy6Rh3vff8OrNGPC0wORYG0QNbgBPgeEzRb_eimsXhmGjTQ91yC-6bIVQZWZ97HGfQ3xtizSgiQBarQiE6T0vANVss_Ek_uQqiXtu0tUHvdXqrU5VKLGXYDdDcf_AJtxMyrP-B/s600/Bonnie in car1.jpg.

Burrough, Bryan. "Ambushes." Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34. New York: Penguin, 2004. 166+,288+. Print.

Public Enemy Number One: John Dillinger

John Herbert Dillinger Jr. as original birth name was from a serene city in Indianapolis born on June, 22 1903, where he quickly began his delinquent behavior at very young age.  After maturity, John Dillinger became the foremost notorious criminal of the 1930's by always charming the media with his handsome smirk and courtesy. Therefore, “bank robbers were not particularly viewed as terrible criminals by the average American. There was even a touch of Robin Hood when bank robbers destroyed all of the mortgage records at the banks they hit". Calm and collect as a man and full-time  bank robber who viewed by public another victim of the depression era in America trying to find his way out. Somewhat after the event of John Dillinger "Ambush" in Racine, Wisconsin a gentleman named Grover Weyland stated " one of the robbers of the getaway car-later identified as Makely-had cursed, and Dillinger had told him to cut it out, because of the presence of a lady in the car"(Burrough 165). This is only one a multiple occasions of Dillinger either putting a member of gang in their place, or making his popularity increase of his iconic image of a hallmark figure to others of era, only to mock him later.

Dillinger’s head is going to be called eventually and price will be paid, it is expected from someone who evaded arrest, broke out of jail using a wooden gun, or the infamous thirteen banks we know him for. The much acclaimed Dillinger as the most wanted man in the mid finds his match from a relatively new entity, “His nemesis was the federal government's Department of Investigation headed by J. Edgar Hoover, which put a price of $10,000 on his head". The picture on left illustrates: “Wanted Dead or Alive” it demonstrates the eager to do away with Dillinger. They agency did just that after John Dillinger’s short life of dying after his 31st birthday outside Chicago cinema on July, 22 1934

Sources

 Allan, and Marilyn Bardsley. "John Dillinger: Bank Robber or Robin Hood— Little Bohemia — Crime Library on TruTV.com." TruTV.com: Not Reality. Actuality. www.trutv.com. Web. 04 May 2011. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/outlaws/dillinger/1.html>.

Burrough, Bryan. "Ambushes." Public Enemies. Australia: Penguin, 2009. 165+. Print.

Hamilton, Marybeth. "Dillinger's Wild Ride." History Today 60.4 (2010): 57. World History Collection. EBSCO. Web. 2 May 2011.

PictureSource:
http://captnsblog.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/baseball-infamy-john-dillinger-%E2%80%93-from%C2%A0the-bushes-to-robbing-banks/

Where is Law and Order for these crazy men.

Grab your tommy gun and bullet proof vest and get ready to hi-jack a vehicle at gun point. This was the ideology and several trends of the criminals of American gangsters in the 1930's from Public Enemies by author Bryan Burrough. The book captivates the attention of the initial, first well exploited, “Criminal Age “as noted by the author.  Burrough’s book deciphers between the numerous criminals from 1930-1936 and breaks down the era and details criminal by criminal. The story of the bloodshed and how prominent in what seems as characters of a fiction story tale seems to be unrealistic, but I assure you the stories are documented and all very true. When first reading the book published in 2004 the summer after I graduated high school I was immediately drawn into the criminology genre. At first astounded how the old era of criminals did what they did in comparison with modern law enforcement. After my further analysis and interest with the corruption among law enforcement and history did my interest of this descriptive documented portrayal of the well know; Bonnie & Clyde, Machine Gun Kelley, the Karpis Gang, Dillinger Gang and other criminals during this era make me research and dig deeper into the authors story he had created and a couple different gangsters during the time. Along with the reading of the book I want to influence you to be as captivated as I was in researching the unknowingly encounters of these dressed to impressed bad boys and gals of this generation. Also, to show the well documented periods and how the Hoover administration gained its popularity and came to what is known today as the Federal Bureau of Investigations(FBI) and the tribulations to get to its point today. The gangsters of this Depression Era of American history and how they put a new face on crime and how Bryan Borrough writes a jaw dropping story in sequential order making each story tie to one another. Picture Source: http://3.static.wix.com/media/5e085086bc9dba150e5615c1fa8ad481.wix_mp