Description: 5 EXTREMELY RARE and unique unpublished NEGATIVES OF notorious Murder Inc hitman HARRY "PITTSBURGH PHIL" STRAUSS GANG GUNMAN AT SUPREME COURT TRIAL IN BROOKLYN NEW YORK ON AUGUST 2, 1940. Negatives produced by photographer William "Gus" Wolford. Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss (July 28, 1909 – June 12, 1941) was a prolific contract killer for Murder, Inc. in the 1930s. He purportedly killed over one hundred men (some historians put the number as high as 500) using a variety of methods, including: shooting, stabbing with ice picks, drowning, live burial, and strangulation. Strauss never carried a weapon in case the local police picked him up on suspicion. He would scout his murder spot for any tool that would do the job. Most of his associates called him "Pep". In the 1930s, he was committing assaults, larcenies, and drug dealing. He was arrested 18 times but was never convicted until he was found guilty of the homicide that sent him and fellow Murder, Inc. hitman Martin "Bugsy" Goldstein to the electric chair. After hitman Abe "Kid Twist" Reles turned informant, Strauss was arrested for the murder of Irving "Puggy" Feinstein, and at least five other known murders. Strauss tried to avoid conviction by feigning insanity in the courtroom and on death row. Strauss and Goldstein were convicted September 19, 1940, and executed by electrocution using Sing Sing's Old Sparky on June 12, 1941. Pittsburgh Phil Strauss was once philosophizing with a friend early in his career as a murderer. "Like a ballplayer, that's me," Pittsburgh Phil mused. "I figure I get seasoning doing these jobs. Somebody from one of the big mobs spots me. Then, up to the big leagues." Pittsburgh Phil had it right. He was spotted by some very discriminating experts, men named Louis Lepke, Lucky Luciano, Joe Adonis, and Albert Anastasia. And he achieved great success in his chosen field—murder. In time he became the most prolific killer Murder, Inc.,—and all of syndicated crime—ever produced. Killing didn't seem to bother Phil, although he worried greatly for his own health. The contract murder of one Puggy Feinstein offers an example. Phil and a few of the boys lured him into a Brooklyn home and there Phil shoved Feinstein down on a couch and went to work on him with an ice pick. Puggy, fighting for his life, sunk his teeth into Pittsburgh Phil's finger. Irate over such foul play, Phil yelled, "Give me the rope. I'll fix this dirty bum." Phil, with the aid of a confederate, put a loop around his neck and another around his feet and effectively trussed him up. As Puggy kicked he merely tightened the rope around his neck and in time strangled himself to death while the boys watched. Then they took Puggy's body to a vacant lot and set it ablaze. The boys then adjourned to Sheepshead Bay for a seafood dinner. Phil, however, was not happy. "Maybe I am getting lockjaw from being bit," he worried. Phil was so upset about his finger that he barely managed to finish his lobster. Born Harry Strauss—he adopted the name of Pittsburgh Phil, although he had never been to the smoky city—the Brooklyn-bred thug became so popular that when an out-of-town mob or crime family needed an outsider for a contract, they almost always requested Phil. He packed his briefcase with a shirt, a change of socks, underwear, a gun, a knife, a length of rope and an ice pick, hopped a train or plane to his destination, pulled the job and caught the next connection back to New York. Often Phil did not even know the name of the person he had killed, and generally he didn't care to find out. When investigators cracked Murder, Inc., in 1940, the office of Brooklyn district attorney William O'Dwyer developed solid evidence tying Phil to 28 killings. Law enforcement officers from Connecticut to California came up with a like number in which Phil was positively identified. That of course represented merely the known homicides attributable to him. A present-day crime historian seriously suggests that Phil bumped off at least 500, but this seems nonsensical. However, there is little doubt that his murder toll well exceeded 100. This is an impressive figure, even by Murder, Inc., standards; the three next active killers in the mob, Dasher Abbandando, Kid Twist Reles and Happy Maione, in combination probably no more than matched Phil. Pittsburgh Phil was also the dandy of the troop, noted for wearing $60 suits, in Depression times a princely sum. New York's incorruptible police commissioner, Lewis Valentine, once said of Phil in a police lineup: "Look at him! He's the best dressed man in the room and he's never worked a day in his life!" Quite naturally the tall, lean, handsome Pittsburgh Phil was much-pursued by the young ladies of Brownsville. His love affair with Evelyn Mittleman, a Brooklyn beauty dubbed the Kiss of Death Girl, was one of the underworld's more touching, climaxed by Phil's eradication of a rival for her affection. It is almost amazing that, between his Beau Brummel and Don Juan activities, Phil had the time for mass murder, yet he always seemed to complete his contracts. Once, at the very moment Commissioner Valentine had Phil in his office for an interrogation, his homicide detectives were slaving unbeknownst over one of Phil's labors. The corpse in question was one George Rudnick, suspected by labor extortionist Louis Lepke of being an informer. Rudnick had been taking the sun one afternoon along Livonia Avenue when Phil and some of his colleagues snatched him up in a car. It was a short drive to the execution chamber, a garage at Eastern Parkway and Atlantic Avenue. Some hours later Rudnick's body was found in a stolen car at the other end of Brooklyn. The medical examiner gives some indication of Phil's savagery:This was a male adult, somewhat undernourished; approximate weight 140 pounds; six feet in height. There were 63 stab wounds on the body. On the neck, I counted 13 stab wounds, between the jaw and collar bone. On the right chest, there were 50 separate circular wounds. He had a laceration on the frontal region of the head. The wound gaped, and disclosed the bone underneath. His face was intensely cyanic, or blue. The tongue protruded. At the level of the larynx was a grooving, white and depressed, about the width of ordinary clothesline. When the heart was laid open, the entire wall was found to be penetrated by stab wounds. My conclusion was the cause of death was multiple stab wounds, and also ... asphyxia due to strangulation.When the Purple Gang in Detroit marked a cunning mobster named Harry Millman for execution, they found they couldn't handle the job themselves. One try failed and Millman was on the alert. A hurried call brought Phil to Detroit. Millman moved in crowds and ate in congested restaurants to frustrate would-be assassins, but he could not figure on Phil's daring. Millman was in a packed restaurant one evening when Phil strode in with an assistant. They emptied two revolvers, killing Millman and wounding five other diners in the process, and calmly paraded out. Phil always said he could learn more about murder. When he executed Walter Sage, a New York mobster who was knocking down on the syndicate's slot machine profits, he lashed Sage's body to a pinball machine after ice-picking him 32 times and then dumped him in a Catskills lake. Seven days later, the grisly package floated to the surface due to the buoyancy caused by gases in the decomposing body. "How about that," Phil observed sagely. "With this bum, you gotta be a doctor or he floats." There seems to have been only one contract that Phil failed to carry out. He was sent to Florida and followed the intended victim about until the man went into a movie theater and sat down in the last row. Armed only with a gun, Phil felt it would make too much noise. Then his eyes fell on a fire axe in a glass emergency case. This, he reasoned, was an emergency. Phil took the axe, but by the time he was poised to kill, the target had moved up several rows. In anger Phil tossed down the axe, walked out of the theater and headed back to Brooklyn, declaring the job was jinxed. As he told the troop back home: "Just when I get him set up, the bum turns out to be a goddamn chair hopper." Usually, though, Phil could adapt to any situation. On another Florida job, he was to put away an old mafioso who spoke not a word of English. Phil went to him and by sign language showed him a suitcase full of weapons and made him believe he was out to kill someone else. The mafioso, eager to be helpful, picked up a rope and led Phil to a dark street where he indicated the deed could be done. Phil nodded, promptly strangled the man and went home. Phil's murder career lasted a decade and had not Abe Reles—probably the most important stool pigeon ever to come out of organized crime—started talking he could conceivably still be at his chores, a very lethal senior citizen. Reles turned informer because he saw the law was closing in and was afraid that if someone else in Murder, Inc., informed first, he himself would go to the chair. Actually, no one important in Murder, Inc., was ratting, only some minor hoods who could really prove nothing. However, there was enough for Phil, Reles, Happy Maione and Buggsy Goldstein to be brought in on suspicion. Then Reles started talking. Before he was finished, Murder, Inc., was out of business. Bigtimers like Lepke, Mendy Weiss and Louis Capone were sentenced to the chair. Reles's canary act came to an abrupt end when he "went out the window" of a Brooklyn hotel while under what can only be described as remarkably inefficient police guard. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh Phil was also doomed. He was indicted along with Goldstein for the Puggy Feinstein slaying. To be on the safe side the prosecution lined up five more homicide indictments against Phil if they proved necessary. They didn't. The case against him was overwhelming so Phil did the next best thing; he did an insane act. He refused to wash, shave or change his clothes. When asked at his trial to give his name, he merely licked his lips. Returned to the defendant's chair, he spent most of the rest of his trial trying to chew off the leather strap on a lawyer's briefcase. Newspaper readers reveled over Phil's bizarre acts, but the jury was not impressed. They found him guilty of murder in the first degree. Even in his death cell Phil kept up his insane act, hoping for a commuted sentence. On the last day of his life, he figured out the ploy wasn't going to work and he cleaned himself up and became his dapper old self. He bade farewell to Evelyn, the Kiss of Death Girl. And he further set the record straight by admitting that before his trial he'd offered to turn state's evidence if he was allowed to talk to Reles first. The authorities knew better than to let Phil get into the same room with Reles. As Phil now admitted, he did not intend to turn informer. "I just wanted to sink my tooth into his jugular vein. I didn't worry about the chair, if I could just tear his throat out first." None of Phil's listeners doubted he would have done so if he could. On June 12, 1941, Goldstein went to the chair, and a few minutes later, at 11:06 P.M., Pittsburgh Phil followed him. The syndicate had lost its best hitter. Murder is nothing new. Most murderers are amateurs while some, such as hitmen, are professionals. What you very seldom find is a group of hitmen, a dedicated gang of killers selling murder-for-hire as the enforcement arm of a national crime syndicate. ‘Murder Incorporated’ was exactly that. Within the underworld there was nothing like them prior to their appearance and there’s been nothing like them since their demise. They were an integral part of the restructuring of American organised crime and one of the most notorious criminal groups that ever existed. Louis 'Lepke' Buchalter boarding the train on his last ride to Sing Sing. The National Syndicate (as distinct from the American Mafia whose senior leaders formed only part of it) was a multi-ethnic group of top-level gangsters composed mainly, but not entirely, if Italian, Irish and Jewish crimelords. After the Castellamarese War lasting through 1930 and 1931, Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano restructured the American Mafia. With that done, he turned his attention to restructuring American gangland in general. At a summit meeting in 1934 the crimelords, under Luciano’s influence, agreed territories, boundaries, rackets and what would be done to resolve disputes. That didn’t mean an end to gang violence, there’ll always be gangland violence. What it did mean was that American gangsters would run crime as a business along corporate lines. Violence would now become a business practice, not a natural outcome of hot-headed gunmen settling grudges by force instead of through arbitration. A national Syndicate run by a ‘Commission’ similar to a corporation’s board of directors would now rule the American underworld from coast to coast. The Commission would set down rules and arbitrate disputes. Defying their rulings meant a visit from their enforcers, Murder Incorporated. Murder Inc. was formed from the merging of two gangs. The Italian ‘Ocean Hill Mob’ led by Harry ‘Happy’ Maione (so-called because of his perpetual scowl and deeply anti-social personality) and the predominantly Jewish ‘Brownsville Boys’ based in Brownsville, Brooklyn and led by Abe ‘Kid Twist’ Reles. Nobody’s quite sure how Reles got his nickname. There was another gangster (long-deceased by then) called Kid Twist. There was also a type of candy by the same name. Others, more chillingly, state that he got the nickname because he had he hands and a particularly brutal way of strangling people. Its member included Italians ‘Dandy’ Jack Parisi, Vito ‘Chicken Head’ Gurino (who shot the heads off running chickens for target practice), Louis Capone (no relation to Al) and Jewish mobsters like Harry ‘Pittsburgh Phil’ Strauss (the gang’s most prolific murderer), Emmanuel ‘Mendy’ Weiss, Allie ‘Tick Tock’ Tannenbaum (so named because he despatched his vicitims with the regularity and precision of a ticking clock) and Charles ‘The Bug’ Workman (who carried out the gang’s most infamous hit, that of beer baron ‘Dutch’ Schultz in Newark, New Jersey and drew a 23-year sentence for his efforts. There were others that we’ll get to in passing, but these were the gang’s leading lights. Their most popular nicknamenof ‘Murder Incorporated’ was a journalist’s tagline. Within gangland they were known as simply ‘The Combination.’ Murder Inc's boss, 'Lord High Executioner' Albert Anastasia. The gang’s day-to-day boss was one of the most fearsome men in mafia history, Albert Anastasia. Known variously as ‘Earthquake’, ‘The Mad Hatter’ and, scariest of all, ‘Lord High Executioner’, Anastasia was a homicidal maniac of stunning brutality with a total indifference to the value of human life. To Anastasia, it was simple. A person’s life was worth however much Anastasia was prepared to accept for killing them. Sometimes he’d even do it for nothing, as a favour to his gangland pals, and then they’d return the favour some time down the line when Anastasia felt like ordering a murder. He tended to order murders the same way you or I might order a pizza. Although that should be no surprise, he’d already spent his 19th birthday on Death Row after murdering a dockworker during a brawl. Murder Inc’s gunmen weren’t paid for gangland killings, the victim’s criminal rackets were simply divided up and the spoils more than covered the cost. When Murder Inc. gunmen took on the occasional private contract then fee was based on the risk and difficulty involved. Their modus operandi was pretty simple. Essentially, Murder Inc. was an employment agency for assassins. Although operating out of the ‘Midnight Rose’ candy store New York they killed all over the country. If a boss in, say, Los Angeles, Chicago or San Antonio wanted somebody dead and was connected to the Syndicate then a call to New York saw somebody despatched wherever they were needed. Once they reconnoitred their target and done the job their orders were to return to New York as quickly as possible, preferably having left town before their handiwork had even been discovered. That way whoever ordered a hit would be insulated from the potential consequences unless the hitman talked. Eventually, more than one did, with disastrous consequences for some very notorious names. Their weapons were equally simple. Handguns, shotguns, Tommy guns, icepicks, meat cleavers, ropes, lead pipes. Nothing fancy as, the more complicated the weapon, the more likely tht something might go wrong. None of that ‘Day of The Jackal’-style specialised weaponry for these gangsters. Poison was a rarity, while the icepick and the handgun were Murder Incorporated’s heavy hitters. Most of Murder Inc’s jobs worked on the KISS principles: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Murder Inc kept it simple for nearly eight years. During that time dead gangsters and ‘civilians’ (non-criminals who’d seen something they shouldn’t or were otherwise displeased the Mob) popped up all over the country. No accurate estimate of their total has ever been possible (murderers tend not to advertise, after all) but we do know their victims numbered in the hundreds, especially in New York where unexplained corpses were popping up all over the State on an increasingly regular basis. Murder inc. even contributed to American underworld slang. To them a target was a ‘mark’ or a ‘bum,’ a murder was a ‘hit’ or a ‘contract,’ a killer was a ‘hitman,’ to be ‘taken’ meant being killed The most vicious of all Murder Inc’s killers was Harry ‘Pittsburgh Phil’ Strauss. It’s said that he murdered over 100 people and that his personal motto was “It’s OK to do murder, as long as I don’t get caught.” His weapon of choice was an icepick, although anything that came to hand was a potential weapon for Phil. He used a meat cleaver at least once. Other particularly heavy hitters were Allie ‘Tick Tock’ Tannenbaum, Abe ‘Kid Twist’ Reles, Seymour ‘Blue Jaw’ Magoon (so called due to his permanent five o’clock shadow) and Emannuel ‘Mendy’ Weiss. Lesser, but equally odious members included Vito ‘Chicken Head’ Gurino, Frank ‘The Dasher’ Abbandando (so called for his once running away from a rival hitman sent to kill him, then appearing behind his would-be assassin and shooting him in the back of the head) and Martin ‘Buggsy’ Goldstein (whose colleagues thought he was slightly insane, but never called him ‘Buggsy’ to his face). All in all, a regular Murderer’s Row of incredibly vicious, violent men. The hit on beer baron ‘Dutch Schultz’ at the Palace Chop House resulted in the deaths of Schultz and three of his men, it was a particularly violent crime even by Murder Inc’s advanced standards, but was also typical of the violence they were capable of even against a rogue boss of Schultz’s stature. Mercifully, Murder Inc’s reign of terror couldn’t last forever. In 1937 its former leader and most regular client, racketeer and drug trafficker Louis ‘Lepke’ Buchalter, became a fugitive, not surrendering himself until 1940. While a fugitive he went on a spree of contract murders using Murder Inc. gunmen to eliminate informers, suspected informers and even those he thought might inform in the future. In the underworld a twisted version of respect operates which, boiled down, means that any boss has to ensure their underlings fear their vengeance more than facing long jail sentences. Lepke’s underlings came to fear him so much that co-operation looked like a much safer bet. Abe Reles, this canary could sing, but couldn't fly. Lepke’s blood-lust included former employees, former friends and even some of his most trusted underlings such as Max Rubin. One the early victims of his killing spree was a former trucker, Joseph Rosen, in 1937. The Rosen hit would have far-reaching consequence for Lepke and his associates. Abe Reles and Martin Goldstein were arrested as a result of information supplied by two of their colleagues, ‘Dukey’ Maffetore and Abe ‘Red’ Levine. Their evidence could see Reles taking a seat in Old Sparky unless he offered enough information to save him from a death sentence. He offered more than enough. He became a witness and provided the template for every Mob turncoat from Joe Valachi onward. Arrested and told his options, he opted for co-operation over electrocution or a bullet from one of his former colleagues. Reles embarked upon singing a grand opera. During his first two weeks in custody he filled 12 stenographer’s books and talked for fourteen days straight. He also agreed to testify against his former comrades in return for immunity. Once Reles cracked so did Magoon, Tannenbaum, Sholem Bernstein, and several others like a row of dominoes falling. Lepke was already at the death house door because the prosecution evidence in the Rosen case was so strong. Reles and Tannenbaum could supply enough corroboration to see him marched through that door and wheeled back out. Lepke’s trial for ordering the Rosen murder began in mid-October, 1941. In November he and his two senior aides, ‘Mendy’ Weiss and Louis Capone, were convicted. By that time Strauss, Abbandando, Goldstein and Maione had already been executed with Reles’ evidence proving decisive. Several others were either serving long jail sentences or facing execution. It would have been useful to prosecutors if Reles hadn’t fallen out of the window of his heavily-guarded hotel suite, becoming ‘The canary who could sing, but couldn’t fly’, but Tannenbaum’s evidence was enough. Tannenbaum had actually overheard Lepke order the murder and, under New York law at the time, he could supply corroboration as he wasn’t involved in the crime itself. Anastasia was off the hook due to Reles’ unscheduled flying lesson, but Lepke, Capone and Weiss were good to go. All three were convicted in November and condemned in December, 1941. Their combined appeals, especially Lepke’s, would see them survive in Sing Sing’s death house until March 4, 1944. Final Destination: 'Old Sparky at Sing Sing Prison's 'Death House.' Executions at Sing Sing were traditionally performed on a Thursday, known to staff and inmates alike as ‘Black Thursday.’ A last minute 48-hour reprieve saw the execution of Buchalter, Weiss and Capone shifted back to Saturday, March 4, 1944, much to the distaste of Sing Sing’s resident rabbi, Joseph Katz, who would act as spiritual advisor to Buchalter and Weiss (Capone was a Catholic). Rabbi Katz resented executions being held on the Jewish Sabbath. On March 2 two other condemned inmates, Joe Palmer and Vincent Soolami, went as scheduled for murdering Detective Joseph Miccio during a robbery, On March 4, Capone went first at 11pm. After him came Weiss, whose last words were “I’m here on a framed-up case.” Finally it was Lepke’s turn. He walked into the brightly-lit room, grim-faced and silent, saying nothing as the straps and electrodes were applied, staring straight ahead and looking briefly upward as the leather helmet came down over his face. The switch was thrown and 2000 volts riped through his body. By 11:20pm the only top-level mobster in American history to be legally executed was certified dead. Lepke and Murder Incorporated were dead and buried.“Pittsburgh Phil” StraussHarry “Pittsburgh Phil” Strauss was a feared enforcer for Murder, Inc., the gang of killers employed by various organized crime groups in the 1930s and 1940s, primarily in New York. Strauss was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1909 and quickly fell into a life of crime. By the age of 25, Strauss had already been arrested 17 times in New York City. As was typical of organized crime figures of the day, Strauss was never convicted for any of these early transgressions. An Assistant District Attorney in New York said Strauss “had never been convicted of so much as smoking on a subway platform.” “Pittsburgh Phil” Strass on the right. PinterestBy the time Strauss was a full-blown assassin for Murder, Inc., he used many tools to get rid of witness, enemies, and anyone else who had crossed the mafia. He carried a knife, gun, and an icepick so he could choose between weapons when killing a target. Strauss was sometimes sent out of town to conduct business, including the high-profile murder of Harry Millman of the Purple Gang in a diner in Detroit. Strauss continued to murder throughout the 1930s, until a fellow Murder, Inc. associate decided to talk to authorities and pin a number of crimes on his fellow gang members. Abe “Kid Twist” Reles cooperated with police, and Strauss was just one of the names he named. Strauss was arrested for the murder of gangster Irving “Puggy” Feinstein in 1940. Reles’ account of the murder could be counted on by police: he had participated in Feinstein’s killing. During his trial, “Pittsburgh Phil” Strauss attempted to convince the judge and jury that he was insane. He grew a long beard, stopped showering, and made a point of chewing on a leather briefcase strap throughout the ordeal. The jury wasn’t buying the act, however, and Strauss, along with his companion Martin “Bugsy” Goldstein, was sentenced to death in Sing Sing Prison’s electric chair, known as “Old Sparky.” On June 12, 1941, Strauss and Goldstein were executed. As for the informant, Abe “Kid Twist” Reles; he mysteriously fell from a window and died while under police protection in November 1941. Organized Crime Figure. He was a member of a murder-for-hire gang made up of low-level Jewish and Italian gangsters working out of Brooklyn, New York during the 1930s. This gang came to be known in the news media as "Murder Inc." The gang carried out murders in the New York City area under the direction of Lepke Buchalter and Albert Anastasia. Harry Strauss was considered the gangs most vicious killer. He was convicted of murder charges in 1940 and was executed in the electric chair at Sing-Sing Prison in June 1941. Murder, Inc. (Murder Incorporated) were organized crime groups in the 1930s and '40s that acted as the enforcement arm of the Italian-American Mafia, Jewish mob, and connected organized crime groups in New York and elsewhere.[1] The groups were largely composed of Italian-American and Jewish gangsters from the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Brownsville, East New York, and Ocean Hill. Originally headed by Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, and later by the most feared mob boss Albert "The Mad Hatter" Anastasia, Murder, Inc. was believed to be responsible for between 400 and 1,000 contract killings,[2] until the group was exposed in the early 1940s by former group member Abe "Kid Twist" Reles. In the trials that followed, many members were convicted and executed, and Abe Reles himself died after suspiciously falling from a window. Thomas E. Dewey first came to prominence as a prosecutor of Murder, Inc. and other organized crime cases.[3] Contents1Origins2Methods3Founding and early activities3.1Murder of Dutch Schultz4Demise5Trials5.1Harry Maione and Frank Abbandando5.2Harry Strauss and Martin Goldstein5.3Charles Workman5.4Irving Nitzberg5.5Louis Buchalter, Emanuel Weiss, Louis Capone, Harry Strauss, James Feraco and Philip Cohen5.6Vito Gurino5.7Jacob Drucker and Irving Cohen5.8Jack Parisi5.9Others6After the trials7Known members8In popular culture9ReferencesOriginsThe Bugs and Meyer Mob was the predecessor to Murder, Incorporated. The gang was founded by New York Jewish American mobsters Meyer Lansky and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel in the early 1920s. After the Castellammarese War and the assassination of U.S. Mafia boss Salvatore Maranzano, Sicilian mafioso Charles "Lucky" Luciano created the Commission. Soon after, Siegel and Lansky disbanded the Bugs and Meyer gang and formed Murder, Incorporated. MethodsMost of the killers were Italian and Jewish gangsters from the gangs of the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Brownsville, East New York, and Ocean Hill. In addition to carrying out crime in New York City and acting as enforcers for New York Jewish mobster Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, they accepted murder contracts from mob bosses all around the United States. In the book The Valachi Papers (1969) by Peter Maas, Mafia turncoat Joe Valachi is described as insisting that Murder, Inc. did not commit crimes for the Mafia; but this is contradicted by other sources, and by the fact that Albert Anastasia was head of a Mafia crime family.[4] Based in part in Rosie "Midnight Rose" Gold's candy store at the corner of Saratoga and Livonia Ave in Brooklyn, Murder Inc. hit men used a wide variety of weapons, including ice picks, to murder their victims.[5][page needed] Though the group had a number of members, Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss was the most prolific killer, committing over 100 murders (some historians put the number as high as 500).[6] The killers were paid a regular salary as retainer as well as an average fee of $1,000 to $5,000 per killing. Their families also received monetary benefits. If the killers were caught, the mob would hire the best lawyers for their defense.[citation needed] Founding and early activities An FBI wanted poster for Jacob Shapiro and Louis Buchalter.Murder, Inc. was established after the formation of the commission of the National Crime Syndicate, to which it ultimately answered. It was largely headed by mob boss Louis "Lepke" Buchalter and Mangano Family underboss Albert Anastasia, but also had members from Buchalter's labor-slugging gang (in partnership with Tommy "Three-Fingered Brown" Lucchese) as well as from another group of enforcers from Brownsville, Brooklyn, New York led by Martin "Buggsy" Goldstein and Abe "Kid Twist" Reles. Buchalter, in particular, and Joe Adonis occasionally, gave the outfit its orders from the board of directors of the syndicate. Albert "The Mad Hatter" Anastasia was the troupe's operating head, or "Lord High Executioner", assisted by Lepke's longtime associate Jacob "Gurrah" Shapiro. In 1932, Abe Wagner informed on the crime syndicate to the police. He fled to Saint Paul, Minnesota, and adopted a disguise to evade possible pursuit. Two killers, George Young and Joseph Schafer, found and shot him but were later apprehended. Bugsy Siegel failed to get them released. In the 1930s, Buchalter used Murder, Inc. to murder witnesses and suspected informants when he was being investigated by crusading prosecutor Thomas Dewey.[3] In one case on May 11, 1937, four killers hacked loan shark George Rudnick to pieces on the mere suspicion he was an informant. On October 1, 1937, they shot and seriously wounded Buchalter's ex-associate Max Rubin. Rubin had disobeyed Buchalter's orders to leave town and "disappear" in order to avoid being summoned as a witness against Buchalter. Three alleged victims of Murder, Inc. in 1935 were Morris Kessler and brothers Louis and Joseph Amberg. Murder of Dutch SchultzProbably their most well known victim was Dutch Schultz, who had openly defied the syndicate. In October 1935, Schultz insisted on putting a hit on Dewey, who was leading an all-out effort to put the mob out of business. The syndicate board overruled Schultz. They feared that Dewey's assassination would incite public outrage and result in an even greater campaign to shut down the rackets. Schultz vowed that he would ignore the board's decision and kill Dewey himself. The board decided they needed to act immediately to kill Schultz before he killed Dewey. Therefore, in a twist, Buchalter actually saved Dewey's life, which allowed Dewey to continue his efforts to bring down Buchalter. This led Shapiro to suggest years later that Schultz should have been allowed to kill Dewey, although at the time he supported the syndicate's decision to overrule Schultz. Hitmen Mendy Weiss and Charles Workman were given the assignment to kill Schultz. On October 24, 1935, they tracked down Schultz and his associates Otto Berman, Abe Landau, and Lulu Rosenkrantz and shot them at the Palace Chop House in Newark, New Jersey. Berman, Landau, and Rosenkrantz died almost immediately, while Schultz clung to life until the following day. As the thorough Workman stayed behind to make sure they had completed their assignment and finished off Schultz in the men's room of the restaurant, Weiss escaped the scene with their Murder, Inc. getaway driver Seymour Schechter. Furious at being abandoned by his confederates, Workman had to make his way back to Brooklyn by foot. A day or two later Workman filed a 'grievance' with the board against Weiss and Schechter. Although he had simply followed Weiss' frantic orders to drive away without waiting for Workman, the unfortunate Schechter ended up bearing the punishment, becoming a Murder, Inc. victim himself a short time later. In 1944, Weiss ended up in the electric chair for another murder. Workman was eventually tried by the State of New Jersey for the Schultz murder and served 23 years in prison.[7] DemiseIn January 1940, professional criminal and police informer Harry Rudolph was held as a material witness in the murder of 19-year-old minor gangster Alex Alpert. Alpert was shot in the back on a street corner in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn on November 25, 1933.[8][9] While in custody, Rudolph talked with Brooklyn District Attorney William O'Dwyer. With Rudolph's testimony, O'Dwyer secured first-degree murder indictments against Abe Reles, Martin Goldstein and Anthony Maffetore.[8][9] After the three were indicted, O'Dwyer learned from Special Prosecutor John Harlan Amen[10] that Rudolph was reportedly offered a $5,000 bribe by another prisoner, on behalf of the syndicate, to "put Reles and Goldstein on the street".[9] O'Dwyer stated that when Maffetore learned of the bribe offer to help clear Reles and Goldstein and after several talks with New York City Detective John Osnato, he decided to turn state's evidence.[9][11] Detective Osnato talked with Maffetore even though he had worked with Rudolph previously and did not put much credibility in his story since Rudolph was paid for information in other cases that turned out to be false.[12] Eventually, Maffetore decided to cooperate, stating that he was not involved in the Alpert murder, but was the driver in six gangland murders.[12] Maffetore then convinced Abraham Levine to talk. Reles was next to cooperate with the District Attorney's office.[13] After Reles agreed to cooperate, numerous first-degree murder indictments were issued in Brooklyn, (The) Bronx, and in upstate Sullivan County (Catskills).[14] Additional members of the "Combination" then were added to the list of cooperating witnesses, including Albert Tannenbaum, Seymour Magoon, and Sholem Bernstein. Harry Rudolph's testimony was never used in any of the trials, as he died of natural causes in the infirmary at Rikers Island in June 1940.[15] Abe Reles fell to his death from a room at the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island on November 12, 1941, even though he was under police guard.[16][17] The official verdict was accidental death by defenestration, but the angle of his trajectory suggests that he was pushed. TrialsHarry Maione and Frank AbbandandoHarry Maione and Frank Abbandando were the first members of the Brooklyn "Combination" to be put on trial for murder. In May 1940, the trial started for the May 25, 1937 ice-pick murder of George "Whitey" Rudnick in a Brooklyn parking garage.[18][19][20] Harry Strauss was also indicted for the murder, and, after initially agreeing to cooperate with the District Attorney's office, he was severed from the trial.[21] On May 15, 1940, Abe Reles testified that Rudnick was marked for death after Strauss claimed he had obtained information that Rudnick was a "stool pigeon for the police." Reles also testified that he waited outside the garage while Maione, Abbandando and Strauss were inside with Rudnick. After Rudnick was believed to have been murdered, Abbandando called for Reles and summoned Angelo "Julie" Catalano to the garage to assist with moving the body. Since Rudnick was still alive, Strauss resumed his assault with an ice pick, and Maione used a meat cleaver to complete the murder.[22] The next day, Catalano, who drove the automobile with Rudnick's body, corroborated Reles' account of the murder.[23] "Dukey" Maffetore and Abe "Pretty" Levine testified that they stole the automobile that was used to dispose of the body.[24] Maione and 14 witnesses testified that he was at his grandmother's wake when Rudnick was murdered.[25] The funeral home undertaker and embalmer testified that Maione was not at the wake.[26] Also, one of Maione's chief witnesses admitted that he committed perjury as ordered by Maione's brother, whom he feared.[27] On May 23, 1940, Maione and Abbandando were convicted of first-degree murder, which meant a mandatory sentence of death in the electric chair.[28] New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals, overturned the conviction on a 4–3 vote in December 1940.[29][30] The second trial started on March 10, 1941.[31][32] At one point during the trial, Maione lost his temper and threw a glass of water at Reles.[33] Maione and Abbandando were convicted of first-degree murder for a second time on April 3, 1941.[34] Maione and Abbandando were formally sentenced to death for a second time on April 14, 1941.[35] The Court of Appeals upheld the second conviction on January 8, 1942.[36] Maione and Abbandando were executed at Sing Sing prison on February 19, 1942.[37] Harry Strauss and Martin GoldsteinHarry Strauss and Martin Goldstein were put on trial for the September 4, 1939, strangulation murder of bookmaker Irving Feinstein, whose body was set on fire and left in a vacant lot after Feinstein had been strangled.[38] The trial started in September 1940 with Strauss feigning insanity.[39][40][41][42][43] Abe Reles, the chief prosecution witness, testified that Feinstein was murdered on orders of Albert Anastasia, since he supposedly "crossed" Vincent Mangano.[44] Reles testified that he, Goldstein and Strauss murdered Feinstein in his house. Reles's mother-in-law also testified that Reles and Strauss had asked her for an ice pick and clothesline earlier in the day and, while at the house, heard loud music masking a commotion in the living room. She also testified hearing Strauss say that he had been bitten. Goldstein's former bodyguard/driver Seymour Magoon corroborated the story, as he testified that on the night of the murder, Goldstein told him that he along with Reles and Strauss had murdered Puggy Feinstein and that shortly after the crime was committed, Goldstein and "Duke" Maffetore burned the body.[45] Goldstein's attorney decided not to put up a defense. Strauss's attorney claimed his client was insane. Strauss was briefly allowed on the witness stand but refused to take his oath and was "babbling incoherently" as he was led back to the defense table. Strauss then began chewing on a leather strap of a briefcase.[46] On September 19, 1940, Strauss and Goldstein were convicted of first-degree murder and a week later sentenced to death in the electric chair.[47][48] On April 24, 1941, Strauss and Goldstein's convictions were affirmed by New York's Court of Appeals on a 4–3 decision.[49] Strauss and Goldstein were executed in the electric chair on June 12, 1941.[50] Charles WorkmanCharles Workman was indicted in New Jersey on March 27, 1940, for the October 23, 1935, murder of Dutch Schultz and three members of his gang.[51] Workman was extradited to New Jersey in April 1941.[52] The trial, which opened in June 1941, featured testimony from Abe Reles and Albert Tannenbaum as the primary underworld witnesses against Workman.[53][54] The trial opened with two state witnesses, the restaurant bartender and a woman who was outside the restaurant, failing to identify Workman.[55] The next day, Reles and Tannenbaum provided their testimony implicating Workman. Next, a female friend of slain gangster Danny Fields, who was described as a "collector for the payroll" of Lepke, testified that Workman showed up at her apartment the day after Schultz's murder and asked Fields to burn his clothes. The woman, who used a pseudonym on the witness stand, testified that Workman openly talked about the Schultz killing and how he was left behind in the restaurant.[56] Workman's defense opened with testimony from Marty Krompier, a close associate of Dutch Schultz who was shot in Manhattan the same night Schultz was murdered in New Jersey.[57] Krompier testified that Tannenbaum told him that he did not shoot him as he was in New Jersey and killed Schultz.[58] Workman, in the middle of his defense, changed his plea from 'not guilty' to 'no contest' after one of his chief witnesses, a Manhattan funeral director who testified that Workman was employed by him during the time of the Schultz murder and who was the brother-in-law of the late Lepke associate Danny Fields, recanted his testimony providing Workman with an alibi.[59] The same day Workman changed his plea, he was sentenced to life in prison.[60] Workman was paroled on March 10, 1964, after serving 23 years in prison.[61] Irving NitzbergIrving Nitzberg, who was "imported" by the Brooklyn "Combination" from The Bronx, was put on trial for the January 9, 1939, murder of Albert Shuman in Brooklyn based on the testimony of three accomplices, Abe Reles, Albert Tannenbaum and Seymour Magoon. Reles testified that Shuman was killed since he cooperated with the authorities who were conducting an inquiry of Lepke's involvement in labor racketeering.[62] Reles also testified that he helped plan the murder of Shuman with Lepke, who was a fugitive at the time, and Mendy Weiss and that Lepke received approval from Albert Anastasia to use a person who lived outside Brooklyn to help with completing the assignment. Seymour Magoon testified that he stole the car used in the murder on Reles's orders.[63] Albert Tannenbaum testified that he was the driver that picked up Nitzberg and Shuman under the pretense of performing a robbery. Nitzberg, who was in the back seat, shot Shuman twice in the back of the head when Tannenbaum gave a predetermined signal. Tannenbaum and Nitzberg then exited the murder car to join Reles and another gangster in the getaway car and departed from the crime scene.[64][65] Nitzberg was convicted of first-degree murder on May 23, 1941, and sentenced to death in the electric chair.[66][67] However, on December 10, 1941, the conviction was overturned on a 4–3 vote by New York's Court of Appeals, which questioned the use of testimony of non-accomplice witnesses who were promised leniency to support the testimony of Reles, Tannenbaum and Magoon.[68][69] Nitzberg was tried a second time in 1942 with the now-deceased Reles's testimony read to the jury.[70] Nitzberg was convicted for a second time on March 12, 1942.[71] The conviction was overturned again by the Court of Appeals on a 4–3 vote, but, this time, the court also dismissed the indictment as faulty since the only testimony presented to the Grand Jury was from accomplices without corroboration.[72][73] Louis Buchalter, Emanuel Weiss, Louis Capone, Harry Strauss, James Feraco and Philip Cohen Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, standing in court during sentencing, December 2, 1941Louis Buchalter, Emanuel Weiss, Louis Capone, Harry Strauss, James Feraco and Philip Cohen were indicted for the murder of candy-store owner Joe Rosen. Rosen was murdered in Brooklyn on September 13, 1936.[74] Cohen had his murder indictment dropped prior to the start of the trial after his conviction on a federal narcotics charge and received a 10-year sentence.[75] James Feraco had vanished without a trace and was presumably killed in 1940 or 1941 and Harry Strauss had already been executed for the murder of Irving Feinstein. Jury selection for the trial began in August 1941. However, securing a jury for Lepke proved difficult. After enough jurors were finally selected, the trial actually started in October 1941.[76] The trial featured the testimony of Rosen's wife and son, a teacher, and underworld turncoat Sholem Bernstein, who was marked for death after refusing to carry out a murder contract on Irving Cohen, who fled to California after the murder of Walter Sage in 1937.[77][78][79] Lepke, Weiss and Capone were convicted on November 30, 1941.[80][81] The Court of Appeals upheld the murder convictions of Lepke, Weiss and Capone in October 1942 on a 4–3 vote.[82] The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Lepke's appeal in February 1943.[83] In March 1943, the Supreme Court reversed its earlier decision and granted a review to Lepke, Weiss and Capone.[84] The Supreme Court upheld the conviction in June 1943.[85] Before Lepke could be executed, New York State needed the federal government to turn Lepke over, as he was currently serving a 14-year sentence in federal prison.[86] Lepke continued to appeal his death sentence vigorously in New York and transfer from federal custody.[87] Lepke, Weiss and Capone were executed in Sing-Sing prison on March 4, 1944.[88] Vito GurinoVito "Socko" Gurino was sought for questioning in the Brooklyn murder investigation as the member assigned to eliminate witnesses against the "Combination".[89] First, Gurino attempted to silence a small-time gangster and eyewitness to the George Rudnick murder.[90] Police picked up Angelo "Julie" Catalano on the streets of Brooklyn, shortly after being bailed out by the syndicate, as Gurino tried to convince him to "hide out" on Long Island.[90] Several days later, Gurino used a contact, corrupt Queens County Deputy Sheriff William Cassele, to enter the county's civil prison on the night of March 29, 1940.[89] Cassele then forced Joseph "Joe the Baker" Liberto, who was being held as a material witness in the George Rudnick murder, to meet with Gurino.[89] According to Liberto, he was pushed up against a wall in his cell and threatened with death if he cooperated with the District Attorney.[89] Liberto was taken into custody shortly after an acquaintance drove him to a farmhouse on Long Island. Liberto quickly exited through a window convinced he was going to be killed.[89] Gurino, who was hiding out in New Jersey for much of 1940, was arrested on September 12, 1940, at the Church of the Guardian Angel in Manhattan, screaming hysterically in fear for his life.[91] Shortly after being arrested, Gurino confessed to three syndicate murders and implicated himself in four others.[92] In March 1942, Gurino pleaded guilty to three murders.[93] In April 1942, Gurino was sentenced to 80 years to life in prison.[94] He died of a heart ailment on April 22, 1957, at Dannemora Hospital for the Criminally Insane.[95] Jacob Drucker and Irving CohenJacob Drucker and Irving Cohen were put on trial separately for the murder of racketeer Walter Sage in the Catskills.[96][97] Sage was killed with an ice pick and had the frame of a slot machine tied to his body, which was found in Swan Lake on July 31, 1937. After the Sage murder, believing he was also going to be killed, Cohen fled to California and managed to secure small roles in films.[98][99] According to the chief prosecution witness, Abraham Levine, Sage was riding in a car with Cohen and Drucker when he was stabbed 32 times with an icepick as Levine and Harry Strauss were following in another car. During the assault and struggle, Drucker stabbed Cohen once in the arm as Sage had grabbed the steering wheel and wrecked the car. Levine also testified that he observed Drucker wiping the icepick clean before helping dispose of the body. Cohen testified in his own defense, stating that Levine had stabbed him with an icepick as he was walking home from a casino. Cohen stated that he was assaulted by Levine and another man on Drucker's orders since he refused to pay 25% profit on a game of chance that he operated.[100] Cohen was acquitted on June 21, 1940.[101] Drucker, who was a suspect in four murders in the Catskills, was a fugitive for over three years, until the FBI located him in Delaware.[102][103] Drucker was convicted of second-degree murder on May 5, 1944, and received a sentence of 25 years to life.[104][105] Drucker died in Attica prison in January 1962.[106] Jack ParisiJack "the Dandy" Parisi was acquitted of two murders, Teamsters official Morris Diamond in Brooklyn and music-publishing executive Irving Penn in the Bronx. Penn was killed by mistaken identity, as the intended target, Philip Orlofsky, a Cutters Union official, left his home early to get a shave the day his killers waited for him.[107] Parisi was a fugitive for 10 years, until he was captured in Pennsylvania in 1949.[108] Albert Tannenbaum was brought in from Atlanta, where he was reportedly living, to testify for the prosecution.[109] One accomplice in the Penn murder, Jacob "Kuppy" Migden, who provided the erroneous identification of Penn and who was also a fugitive for several years, pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree assault in the middle of his murder trial and was sentenced to a term of 5–10 years.[110][111] Each of Parisi's murder trials ended with an acquittal, as the judges directed a verdict of not-guilty due to the lack of corroborating evidence, since the chief witnesses for the prosecution were accomplices.[112][113][114] He died at home of natural causes on December 27, 1982, at the age of 85.[115] OthersMax "the Jerk" Golob was indicted with Frank Abbandando for first-degree murder in the slaying of gangster John "Spider" Murtha on March 3, 1935.[116] With little evidence other than the eyewitness testimony of Murtha's female companion, Golob was permitted to plead guilty to second-degree assault and received a maximum term of five years.[117] Sidney "Fats" Brown was the subject of a sealed first-degree murder indictment in Sullivan County, New York. The indictment was dismissed after the death of Abe Reles, the sole witness. Brown was never arrested, and the identity of the murder victim was never revealed.[118] After the trialsWith many of its members executed or imprisoned, Murder, Inc. vanished within a few years. In 1942, Duke Maffetore and Pretty Levine received suspended sentences after pleading guilty to petty larceny in the theft of an automobile used in a gangland murder.[119]In June 1944, NYPD Lieutenant John Osnato, who convinced Duke Maffetore to cooperate with the Brooklyn District Attorney's office, retired after 28 years on the police force. On November 25, 1945, he died of a heart ailment at age 55.[120]In 1949, Philip Cohen was murdered, several months after being released from federal prison. He had served seven years of a 10-year sentence for narcotics trafficking.[121]In October 1950, 37-year-old Anthony Maffetore was arrested for grand larceny as a member of a nationwide auto-theft ring. On March 7, 1951, he disappeared, missed a scheduled appearance in Queens County Court, and was presumed murdered.[122]On October 25, 1957, Albert Anastasia, dubbed in the media the "Lord High Executioner of Murder Inc.", was shot and killed in a barber shop at the Park Sheraton Hotel, in Manhattan.[123] Shortly after Anastasia's murder, East Coast organized criminals held a meeting in Apalachin, New York, to distribute Anastasia's rackets, according to law enforcement.[124][125][126][127]Known membersLouis "Lepke" Buchalter – original head of Murder, Inc.Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel – a founder and leading memberAlbert "The Lord High Executioner" Anastasia – Succeeded Buchalter until he became boss of the Gambino crime familyFrank "The Dasher" AbbandandoJoe AdonisLouis CaponeFrankie CarboLouis CohenAniello Dellacroce[128]Martin "Buggsy" GoldsteinHyman "Curly" HoltzLouis "Shadow" KravitzPhilip "Little Farvel" KovolickSamuel "Red" LevineSeymour MagoonHarry MaioneAbe "Kid Twist" RelesJacob "Gurrah" ShapiroHarry "Pittsburgh Phil" StraussAllie "Tick Tock" TannenbaumEmanuel "Mendy" WeissIn popular cultureFashionMurder, Inc's name featured on the leather jacket of a crew member of a USAAF B-17 that was shot down over Nazi Germany on 26 November 1943. The jacket artwork was photographed and circulated around the world by German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler condemning the use of "gangster language" on the uniform of a soldier.FilmsIn the Merrie Melodies cartoon infamous for its darky iconography, Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943), the Queen orders Murder Inc. to "blackout So White" (a pun on "Snow White"). When Murder Inc. arrives, their van reads: "We rub out anybody $1.00. Midgets—1⁄2 price. Japs—FREE."The Twentieth Century Fox movie Murder, Inc. (1960), was written for the screen by Irve Tunick and Mel Barr from the book by Burton Turkus and Sid Feder's eponymous book, starred Stuart Whitman, Henry Morgan, and Peter Falk, and was directed by Stuart Rosenberg.Music"Murder Incorporated" is a Bruce Springsteen song from his Greatest Hits album (1995). The song was originally recorded in 1982 for the Born in the U.S.A. sessions but was unused on that album.Murder Inc. Records, founded by Irv Gotti, is named after the criminal collective.TelevisionIn the 2017 television series S.W.A.T., Tre (played by Amin Joseph) a professional hitman for hire, names his modern-day service Murder LLC in honor of Murder, Inc.In The Simpsons episode, "In the Name of the Grandfather" (2010), Grampa calls out the family for forgetting to visit him, saying: "I was as lonely as Estes Kefauver at a meeting of Murder Incorporated." The family stares at him blankly, and he replies: "That actually makes sense! Look it up!"The West Wing season 4 episode, "Holy Night", includes a fictional member of Murder, Inc. That character is Jules Ziegler (played by Jerry Adler), the father of Toby Ziegler. The Farm Security Administration (FSA) was a New Deal agency created in 1937 to combat rural poverty during the Great Depression in the United States. It succeeded the Resettlement Administration (1935–1937).[1] The FSA is famous for its small but highly influential photography program, 1935–44, that portrayed the challenges of rural poverty. The photographs in the FSA/Office of War Information Photograph Collection form an extensive pictorial record of American life between 1935 and 1944. This U.S. government photography project was headed for most of its existence by Roy Stryker, who guided the effort in a succession of government agencies: the Resettlement Administration (1935–1937), the Farm Security Administration (1937–1942), and the Office of War Information (1942–1944). The collection also includes photographs acquired from other governmental and nongovernmental sources, including the News Bureau at the Offices of Emergency Management (OEM), various branches of the military, and industrial corporations.[2] In total, the black-and-white portion of the collection consists of about 175,000 black-and-white film negatives, encompassing both negatives that were printed for FSA-OWI use and those that were not printed at the time. Color transparencies also made by the FSA/OWI are available in a separate section of the catalog: FSA/OWI Color Photographs.[2] The FSA stressed "rural rehabilitation" efforts to improve the lifestyle of very poor landowning farmers, and a program to purchase submarginal land owned by poor farmers and resettle them in group farms on land more suitable for efficient farming. Reactionary critics, including the Farm Bureau, strongly opposed the FSA as an alleged experiment in collectivizing agriculture—that is, in bringing farmers together to work on large government-owned farms using modern techniques under the supervision of experts. After the Conservative coalition took control of Congress, it transformed the FSA into a program to help poor farmers buy land, and that program continues to operate in the 21st century as the Farmers Home Administration. Origins Walker Evans portrait of Allie Mae Burroughs (1936) Arthur Rothstein photograph "Dust Bowl Cimarron County, Oklahoma" of a farmer and two sons during a dust storm in Cimarron County, Oklahoma (1936) Dorothea Lange photograph of an Arkansas squatter of three years near Bakersfield, California (1935)The projects that were combined in 1935 to form the Resettlement Administration (RA) started in 1933 as an assortment of programs tried out by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. The RA was headed by Rexford Tugwell, an economic advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.[3] However, Tugwell's goal moving 650,000 people into 100,000,000 acres (400,000 km2) of exhausted, worn-out land was unpopular among the majority in Congress.[3] This goal seemed socialistic to some and threatened to deprive powerful farm proprietors of their tenant workforce.[3] The RA was thus left with only enough resources to relocate a few thousand people from 9 million acres (36,000 km2) and build several greenbelt cities,[3] which planners admired as models for a cooperative future that never arrived.[3] The main focus of the RA was to now build relief camps in California for migratory workers, especially refugees from the drought-stricken Dust Bowl of the Southwest.[3] This move was resisted by a large share of Californians, who did not want destitute migrants to settle in their midst.[3] The RA managed to construct 95 camps that gave migrants unaccustomed clean quarters with running water and other amenities,[3] but the 75,000 people who had the benefit of these camps were a small share of those in need and could only stay temporarily.[3] After facing enormous criticism for his poor management of the RA, Tugwell resigned in 1936.[3] On January 1, 1937,[4] with hopes of making the RA more effective, the RA was transferred to the Department of Agriculture through executive order 7530.[4] On July 22, 1937,[5] Congress passed the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act.[5] This law authorized a modest credit program to assist tenant farmers to purchase land,[5] and it was the culmination of a long effort to secure legislation for their benefit.[5] Following the passage of the act, Congress passed the Farm Security Act into law. The Farm Security Act officially transformed the RA into the Farm Security Administration (FSA).[3] The FSA expanded through funds given by the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act.[3] Relief workOne of the activities performed by the RA and FSA was the buying out of small farms that were not economically viable, and the setting up of 34 subsistence homestead communities, in which groups of farmers lived together under the guidance of government experts and worked a common area. They were not allowed to purchase their farms for fear that they would fall back into inefficient practices not guided by RA and FSA experts.[6] The Dust Bowl in the Great Plains displaced thousands of tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and laborers, many of whom (known as "Okies" or "Arkies") moved on to California. The FSA operated camps for them, such as Weedpatch Camp as depicted in The Grapes of Wrath. The RA and the FSA gave educational aid to 455,000 farm families during the period 1936-1943. In June, 1936, Roosevelt wrote: "You are right about the farmers who suffer through their own fault... I wish you would have a talk with Tugwell about what he is doing to educate this type of farmer to become self-sustaining. During the past year, his organization has made 104,000 farm families practically self-sustaining by supervision and education along practical lines. That is a pretty good record!"[7] The FSA's primary mission was not to aid farm production or prices. Roosevelt's agricultural policy had, in fact, been to try to decrease agricultural production to increase prices. When production was discouraged, though, the tenant farmers and small holders suffered most by not being able to ship enough to market to pay rents. Many renters wanted money to buy farms, but the Agriculture Department realized there already were too many farmers, and did not have a program for farm purchases. Instead, they used education to help the poor stretch their money further. Congress, however, demanded that the FSA help tenant farmers purchase farms, and purchase loans of $191 million were made, which were eventually repaid. A much larger program was $778 million in loans (at effective rates of about 1% interest) to 950,000 tenant farmers. The goal was to make the farmer more efficient so the loans were used for new machinery, trucks, or animals, or to repay old debts. At all times, the borrower was closely advised by a government agent. Family needs were on the agenda, as the FSA set up a health insurance program and taught farm wives how to cook and raise children. Upward of a third of the amount was never repaid, as the tenants moved to much better opportunities in the cities.[8] The FSA was also one of the authorities administering relief efforts in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico during the Great Depression. Between 1938 and 1945, under the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration, it oversaw the purchase of 590 farms with the intent of distributing land to working and middle-class Puerto Ricans.[9] ModernizationThe FSA resettlement communities appear in the literature as efforts to ameliorate the wretched condition of southern sharecroppers and tenants, but those evicted to make way for the new settlers are virtually invisible in the historic record. The resettlement projects were part of larger efforts to modernize rural America. The removal of former tenants and their replacement by FSA clients in the lower Mississippi alluvial plain—the Delta—reveals core elements of New Deal modernizing policies. The key concepts that guided the FSA's tenant removals were: the definition of rural poverty as rooted in the problem of tenancy; the belief that economic success entailed particular cultural practices and social forms; and the commitment by those with political power to gain local support. These assumptions undergirded acceptance of racial segregation and the criteria used to select new settlers. Alternatives could only become visible through political or legal action—capacities sharecroppers seldom had. In succeeding decades, though, these modernizing assumptions created conditions for Delta African Americans on resettlement projects to challenge white supremacy.[10] FSA and its contribution to societyThe documentary photography genre describes photographs that would work as a time capsule for evidence in the future or a certain method that a person can use for a frame of reference. Facts presented in a photograph can speak for themselves after the viewer gets time to analyze it. The motto of the FSA was simply, as Beaumont Newhall insists, "not to inform us, but to move us."[citation needed] Those photographers wanted the government to move and give a hand to the people, as they were completely neglected and overlooked, thus they decided to start taking photographs in a style that we today call "documentary photography." The FSA photography has been influential due to its realist point of view, and because it works as a frame of reference and an educational tool from which later generations could learn. Society has benefited and will benefit from it for more years to come, as this photography can unveil the ambiguous and question the conditions that are taking place.[11] Photography programThe RA and FSA are well known for the influence of their photography program, 1935–1944. Photographers and writers were hired to report and document the plight of poor farmers. The Information Division (ID) of the FSA was responsible for providing educational materials and press information to the public. Under Roy Stryker, the ID of the FSA adopted a goal of "introducing America to Americans." Many of the most famous Depression-era photographers were fostered by the FSA project. Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Gordon Parks were three of the most famous FSA alumni.[12] The FSA was also cited in Gordon Parks' autobiographical novel, A Choice of Weapons. The FSA's photography was one of the first large-scale visual documentations of the lives of African-Americans.[13] These images were widely disseminated through the Twelve Million Black Voices collection, published in October 1941, which combined FSA photographs selected by Edwin Rosskam and text by author and poet Richard Wright. PhotographersFifteen photographers (ordered by year of hire) would produce the bulk of work on this project. Their diverse, visual documentation elevated government's mission from the "relocation" tactics of a Resettlement Administration to strategic solutions which would depend on America recognizing rural and already poor Americans, facing death by depression and dust. FSA photographers: Arthur Rothstein (1935), Theodor Jung (1935), Ben Shahn (1935), Walker Evans (1935), Dorothea Lange (1935), Carl Mydans (1935), Russell Lee (1936), Marion Post Wolcott (1936), John Vachon (1936, photo assignments began in 1938), Jack Delano (1940), John Collier (1941), Marjory Collins (1941), Louise Rosskam (1941), Gordon Parks (1942) and Esther Bubley (1942). With America's entry into World War II, FSA would focus on a different kind of relocation as orders were issued for internment of Japanese Americans. FSA photographers would be transferred to the Office of War Information during the last years of the war and completely disbanded at the war's end. Photographers like Howard R. Hollem, Alfred T. Palmer, Arthur Siegel and OWI's Chief of Photographers John Rous were working in OWI before FSA's reorganization there. As a result of both teams coming under one unit name, these other individuals are sometimes associated with RA-FSA's pre-war images of American life. Though collectively credited with thousands of Library of Congress images, military ordered, positive-spin assignments like these four received starting in 1942, should be separately considered from pre-war, depression triggered imagery. FSA photographers were able to take time to study local circumstances and discuss editorial approaches with each other before capturing that first image. Each one talented in her or his own right, equal credit belongs to Roy Stryker who recognized, hired and empowered that talent. John Collier Jr.John Collier Jr. Jack DelanoJack Delano Walker EvansWalker Evans Dorothea LangeDorothea Lange Russell LeeRussell Lee Carl MydansCarl Mydans Gordon ParksGordon Parks Arthur RothsteinArthur Rothstein John VachonJohn Vachon Marion Post WolcottMarion Post Wolcott These 15 photographers, some shown above, all played a significant role, not only in producing images for this project, but also in molding the resulting images in the final project through conversations held between the group members. The photographers produced images that breathed a humanistic social visual catalyst of the sort found in novels, theatrical productions, and music of the time. Their images are now regarded as a "national treasure" in the United States, which is why this project is regarded as a work of art.[14] Photograph of Chicago's rail yards by Jack Delano, circa 1943Together with John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (not a government project) and documentary prose (for example Walker Evans and James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men), the FSA photography project is most responsible for creating the image of the Depression in the United States. Many of the images appeared in popular magazines. The photographers were under instruction from Washington, DC, as to what overall impression the New Deal wanted to portray. Stryker's agenda focused on his faith in social engineering, the poor conditions among tenant cotton farmers, and the very poor conditions among migrant farm workers; above all, he was committed to social reform through New Deal intervention in people's lives. Stryker demanded photographs that "related people to the land and vice versa" because these photographs reinforced the RA's position that poverty could be controlled by "changing land practices." Though Stryker did not dictate to his photographers how they should compose the shots, he did send them lists of desirable themes, for example, "church", "court day", and "barns". Stryker sought photographs of migratory workers that would tell a story about how they lived day-to-day. He asked Dorothea Lange to emphasize cooking, sleeping, praying, and socializing.[15] RA-FSA made 250,000 images of rural poverty. Fewer than half of those images survive and are housed in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. The library has placed all 164,000 developed negatives online.[16] From these, some 77,000 different finished photographic prints were originally made for the press, plus 644 color images, from 1600 negatives. Documentary filmsThe RA also funded two documentary films by Pare Lorentz: The Plow That Broke the Plains, about the creation of the Dust Bowl, and The River, about the importance of the Mississippi River. The films were deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. World War II activitiesDuring World War II, the FSA was assigned to work under the purview of the Wartime Civil Control Administration, a subagency of the War Relocation Authority. These agencies were responsible for relocating Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast to Internment camps. The FSA controlled the agricultural part of the evacuation. Starting in March 1942 they were responsible for transferring the farms owned and operated by Japanese Americans to alternate operators. They were given the dual mandate of ensuring fair compensation for Japanese Americans, and for maintaining correct use of the agricultural land. During this period, Lawrence Hewes Jr was the regional director and in charge of these activities.[17] Reformers ousted; Farmers Home AdministrationAfter the war started and millions of factory jobs in the cities were unfilled, no need for FSA remained.[citation needed] In late 1942, Roosevelt moved the housing programs to the National Housing Agency, and in 1943, Congress greatly reduced FSA's activities. The photographic unit was subsumed by the Office of War Information for one year, then disbanded. Finally in 1946, all the social reformers had left and FSA was replaced by a new agency, the Farmers Home Administration, which had the goal of helping finance farm purchases by tenants—and especially by war veterans—with no personal oversight by experts. It became part of Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty in the 1960s, with a greatly expanded budget to facilitate loans to low-income rural families and cooperatives, injecting $4.2 billion into rural America.[18] The Great DepressionThe Great Depression began in August 1929, when the United States economy first went into an economic recession. Although the country spent two months with declining GDP, the effects of a declining economy were not felt until the Wall Street Crash in October 1929, and a major worldwide economic downturn ensued. Although its causes are still uncertain and controversial, the net effect was a sudden and general loss of confidence in the economic future and a reduction in living standards for most ordinary Americans. The market crash highlighted a decade of high unemployment, poverty, low profits for industrial firms, deflation, plunging farm incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth.[19]
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