The Shifting Structure of Chicago's Organized Crime Network and the Women It Left Behind
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses November 2015 The Shifting Structure of Chicago's Organized Crime Network and the Women It Left Behind Christina Smith University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Criminology Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons, and the Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance Commons Recommended Citation Smith, Christina, "The Shifting Structure of Chicago's Organized Crime Network and the Women It Left Behind" (2015). Doctoral Dissertations. 453. https://doi.org/10.7275/7360908.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/453 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE SHIFTING STRUCTURE OF CHICAGO’S ORGANIZED CRIME NETWORK AND THE WOMEN IT LEFT BEHIND A Dissertation Presented by CHRISTINA M. SMITH Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY September 2015 Sociology © Copyright by Christina M. Smith 2015 All Rights Reserved THE SHIFTING STRUCTURE OF CHICAGO’S ORGANIZED CRIME NETWORK AND THE WOMEN IT LEFT BEHIND A Dissertation Presented by CHRISTINA M. SMITH Approved as to style and content by: _______________________________________ Andrew V. Papachristos, Co-Chair _______________________________________ Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, Co-Chair _______________________________________ Robert Zussman, Member _______________________________________ Jennifer Fronc, Outside Member ____________________________________ Michelle Budig, Department Head Department of Sociology DEDICATION For my sister, who wanted me to write a dissertation about gender. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Writing a dissertation does not take a village. It takes a social network— especially a social network of durable professional and personal ties. First and foremost, I thank Andy Papachristos for his incredible mentorship, investment, training, creativity, sense of humor, and support. Social ties predict outcomes, and Andy made the process toward the outcome fun, engaging, fruitful, and inspiring. Don Tomaskovic-Devey has a high degree of mentorship ties to some of my favorite sociologists. I am fortunate that Don shared his relational resources, friendship, and mentorship with me. Bob Zussman thinks creatively and relationally. He convinced me that there was something in this dissertation topic when I could not see it, and he continued to push me to see it. Jen Fronc’s period expertise, historian’s voice, and writing inspired me to not neglect the historical narrative. It has been a pleasure and an inspiration to work with these four intellectual giants. University of Massachusetts Amherst Sociology is a dense section of my social network full of amazing people. I owe many thanks to Beth Berry, Roland Chilton, David Cort, Christin Glodek, Rob Faulkner, Naomi Gerstel, Sanjiv Gupta, Sandy Hundsicker, Janice Irvine, James Kitts, Jen Lundquist, Karen Mason, Joya Misra, Wenona Rymond- Richmond, Laurel Smith-Doerr, Millie Thayer, Barbara Tomaskovic-Devey, Maureen Warner, Wendy Wilde, and Jon Wynn. UMass Sociology became increasing multiplex through friendships with my brilliant fellow graduate students. Thank you Dustin Avent- Holt, Irene Boeckmann, Laura Heston, Missy Hodges, Ken-Hou Lin, Elisa Martinez, Sarah Miller, Mary Scherer, Eiko Strader, Mahala Stewart, and Ryan Turner. Melinda Miceli was my broker to UMass, and I thank her for my introduction to sociology at the v University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire, mentoring me through graduate school applications, encouraging me to apply to UMass, and for friendship throughout the years. I received assistance from archivists and research coordinators at the Chicago Crime Commission, Chicago History Museum, and the National Archives Great Lakes Region—special thanks to Scott Forsythe and Matt Jacobs for their assistance in the archives. This dissertation received support from the National Science Foundation under Grant number 1302778, the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice under Award number 2013-IJ-CX-0013, the University of Massachusetts Amherst Graduate School, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst Department of Sociology. Personal ties brought balance and support during graduate school. Thank you Soha Achi, the Alegria family, Jess Barrickman, Eric Burri, Tesa Z. Helge, the Hill family, the Jensen family, Amanda Lincoln, Katie Trujillo, Rachel Weber, and Nicole Wilson. My siblings, Amber and Matt Smith, have been with me on this journey since they were too young to remember. Much of what I do is for them. Sharla Alegria brings joy, adventure, and brilliance to our home every day. Thank you, Sharla, for this wonderfully multiplex social tie. vi ABSTRACT THE SHIFTING STRUCTURE OF CHICAGO’S ORGANIZED CRIME NETWORK AND THE WOMEN IT LEFT BEHIND SEPTEMBER 2015 CHRISTINA M. SMITH, B.A., UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN- EAU CLAIRE Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Andrew V. Papachristos and Professor Donald Tomaskovic-Devey Women are underrepresented in crime and criminal economies compared to men. However, research on the gender gap in crime tends to not employ relational methods and theories, even though crime is often relational. In the predominantly male world of Chicago organized crime at the turn of the twentieth century existed a dynamic gender gap. Combining social network analysis and historical research methods to examine the case of organized crime in Chicago, I uncover a group of women who made up a substantial portion of the Chicago organized crime network from 1900 to 1919. Before Prohibition, women of organized crime operated brothels, trafficked other women, paid protection and graft fees, and attended political galas like the majority of their male counterparts. The 1920 US prohibition on the production, transportation, and sale of alcohol was an exogenous shock which centralized and expanded the organized crime network. This organizational restructuring mobilized hundreds of men and excluded women, even as women’s criminal activities around Chicago were on the rise. Before Prohibition, women connected to organized crime primarily through the locations of their brothels, but, during Prohibition, relationships to associates of organized crime trumped locations as the means of connection. Relationships to organized crime were much more vii accessible to men than to women, and consequently gender inequality increased in the network. The empirical foundation of this research is 5,001 pages of archival documents used to create a relational database with information on 3,321 individuals and their 15,861 social relationships. This research introduces a unique measure of inequality in social networks and a relational theory of gender dynamics applicable to future research on organizations, criminal or otherwise. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................v ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... vii LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. xi LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... xii CHAPTER 1. LOCATING WOMEN IN ORGANIZED CRIME NETWORKS ..........................1 Gender & Crime .......................................................................................................6 Women & Organized Crime ..................................................................................10 Research Questions ................................................................................................13 Social Network Analysis ........................................................................................14 Historical Methods .................................................................................................16 Data ........................................................................................................................18 Sample ....................................................................................................................24 Chapter Outline ......................................................................................................31 Notes ......................................................................................................................36 2. WOMEN IN CHICAGO ORGANIZED CRIME, 1900-1919 ..............................40 The Laws ................................................................................................................41 The Sex Economy ..................................................................................................46 The Three Levees ...................................................................................................53 The Corruption .......................................................................................................59 The Vice Syndicate ................................................................................................66