Download or read book Pretty Boy Floyd The Notorious Life and Death of the Depression Era Outlaw written by Charles River Editors and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes contemporary accounts *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "If you'll gather 'round me, children, a story I will tell'Bout Pretty Boy Floyd, an Outlaw, Oklahoma knew him well." - Woody Guthrie, "The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd" (1939) November 1, 1932 was a fine autumn day in the sleepy, cotton-farming city of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, the heart of Sequoyah County. The blinding rays of the midday sun were shining their brightest, but the otherwise blistering heat was offset by a brisk breeze. These were ideal conditions for a Tuesday, a seemingly pedestrian day of the week, but what was unfolding in the Sallisaw State Bank was anything but ordinary. At first glance, it would seem as if a traveling carnival or a homegrown celebrity had come to town. The sidewalks of the city bank and its surrounding establishments were teeming with locals, generations of families, young lovebirds, and clusters of friends. Indeed, they had convened to witness a spectacle, albeit one of an entirely different sort. The doors of the Sallisaw State Bank swung open with a resounding bang, signaling the start of the show. Out staggered a pair of thieves, each toting bulging sacks of bills and coins and glinting Colt .45s. The hogtied tellers inside the bank desperately wriggled across the floor to voice their distress, craning their necks and directing their muffled screams towards the open door. One had even managed to squirm out of his gag and was calling out to the crowd across the street for help. Unfortunately, his cries were negated, not by the spectators' own cries of alarm, but by thunderous applause, supplemented by whoops, whistles, and a constellation of waving handkerchiefs. Some of those who cleared the path for the robbers' getaway car were supposedly patrons present in the establishment during the stick-up itself. The ringleader, a striking young gentleman with a square jaw, a smoldering squint, and dark hair slicked back with scented pomade, acknowledged his admirers with a quick nod before ducking into the running vehicle. According to local lore, quite a few of the spectators had been briefed on the robbery beforehand by none other than the ringleader himself. So bold was he in his endeavors that he strolled into the bank's neighboring establishments in the days prior and simply asked its proprietors to refrain from ringing the cops, to which they gladly agreed. He even left those complicit with enough time to extract their savings from the bank. The dashing ringleader, hailed by many as the "Robin Hood of Cookson Hills," was none other than Pretty Boy Floyd, a perplexing character as abhorred as he was revered. To the feds, Pretty Boy Floyd was a venomous, manipulative scoundrel who was egregiously lionized as an anti-hero with a heart of gold. A career bank robber supposedly associated with up to 40 bank robberies, his face would soon be plastered on the 1934 poster of the FBI's Most Wanted alongside John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and Alvin Karper. He was also implicated in multiple murders, yet Pretty Boy Floyd's admirers have been willing to overlook these crimes, with some even providing justifications for his behavior and contending that he was unfairly vilified for fighting an unjust system. To them, he was singled out as a scapegoat, and he used that angle himself, once noting, "I guess I've been accused of everything that has happened, except the kidnapping of the Lindbergh child, last spring." As this all suggests, it is virtually impossible to assemble a thoroughly objective profile of the outlaw more than 80 years after his life of crime.
Download or read book The Life Death of Pretty Boy Floyd written by Jeffery S. King and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Arthur Floyd, better known as Pretty Boy Floyd (1904-1934), was one of the last of the so-called Robin Hood outlaws in the tradition of Jesse James, Billy the Kid, and John Dillinger. He engaged in numerous bank-robbing exploits across the Mid-west until federal agents and local police shot him down near East Liverpool, Ohio, on October 22, 1934 - a feat that helped build the image of the modern FBI. This detailed account of his life, crimes, and death makes extensive use of FBI reports, government records, local newspapers, and contemporary journalistic accounts. Neither highly intelligent nor polished, Floyd relied on his cool demeanor, shrewd cunning, and expert gun-handling ability, but he was also considered by those who knew him to be generous and honest. During the depression, many people saw banks as enemies and Floyd as a hero and helped screen him from the police. In this biography, Jeffery S. King addresses many of the questions still surrounding Floyd, such as whether he had contact with other notorious outlaws of the period, including Dillinger, Alvin Karpis, and Bonnie and Clyde, and whether he was executed by the FBI. He also links Floyd to the infamous Kansas City Massacre. Particularly notable are King's assessments of the effectiveness of the FBI and of J. Edgar Hoover's talent for self-promotion.
Download or read book Pretty Boy The Life and Times of Charles Arthur Floyd written by Michael Wallis and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-07-18 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This engaging biography exactly and vividly catches the tone of a region, a time, and a man."—Larry McMurtry From the best-selling author of Billy the Kid and Route 66, a true-life story of a notorious outlaw that magnificently re-creates the vanished, impoverished world of Dust Bowl America. Michael Wallis evokes the hard times of the era as he follows the life of Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd from his coming of age, when there were no jobs and no food, to his descent into a life of petty crime, bootlegging, murder, and prison. Before long he was one of the FBI's original "public enemies." After a series of spectacular bank robberies he was slain in an Ohio field in 1934 at the age of thirty. Pretty Boy is social history at its best, portraying, with a sweeping style, the larger story of the hardscrabble farmers whose lives were so intolerably shattered by the Depression.
Download or read book Pretty Boy Floyd written by Larry McMurtry and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-06-01 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The time is 1925. The place, St. Louis, Missouri. Charley Floyd, a good-looking, sweet-smiling country boy from Oklahoma, is about to rob his first armored car. Written by Pulitzer Prize–winner Larry McMurtry and his writing partner, Diana Ossana, Pretty Boy Floyd traces the wild career of the legendary American folk hero Charley Floyd, a young man so charming that it's hard not to like him, even as he's robbing you at gunpoint. From the bank heists and shootings that make him Public Enemy Number One to the women who love him, from the glamour-hungry nation that worships him to the G-men who track Charley down, Pretty Boy Floyd is both a richly comic masterpiece and an American tragedy about the price of fame and the corruption of innocence.
Download or read book Dillinger s Wild Ride written by Elliott J. Gorn and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-29 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Dillinger was one of the most famous and flamboyant celebrity outlaws, and this book illuminates the significnace of his tremendous fame and the endurance of his legacy of crime and violence, and the transformation of America during the Great Depression.
Download or read book Machine Gun Kelly The Notorious Life and Crimes of the Depression Era Gangster written by Charles River Editors and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2019-01-24 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes quotes and contemporary accounts *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading Veteran bootlegger. Prolific bank robber. Kidnapper extraordinaire. Ruthless criminal mastermind. With a nickname as hardcore as George "Machine Gun" Kelly's, it should come as no surprise that such terms are frequently associated with him. 86 years may have come and gone since his death, but this Depression-era mobster's name and legacy are still as relevant as ever. Not only has this legendary nickname been adopted by a popular rapper, he remains the subject of various articles, books, songs, films, and other pop culture mediums. Of course, given his fame and notoriety, it's always fair to ask how much truth there is to the riveting, action-packed tales surrounding his short, memorable life of crime. Machine Gun Kelly: The Notorious Life and Crimes of the Depression Era Gangster profiles how he became one of America's most famous outlaws, and the daring crimes that made him so feared. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Machine Gun Kelly like never before.
Download or read book Charles Pretty Boy Floyd written by Maria Wheeler-Hughes and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the period between 1932 and 1934, it is believed that Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd gained support from a large portion of the American public. This support is believed to be a result of the frequency in which articles relating to him appeared in contemporary newspaper and the subsequent sources relating to Floyd in the years after his death. This thesis intends to illustrate how the myth surrounding Floyd was shaped and driven by a narrative produced by the contemporary newspaper coverage of his exploits during his life. The popular support for Floyd was a result of these newspapers constructing an outlaw-hero myth surrounding Floyd and his actions during his life. Along with contemporary newspaper accounts of Floyd, there has also been a number of representations and interpretations through other media forms, such as music and novels, which were produced after Floyd’s death. These additional media examples show how the outlaw-hero myth, constructed during Floyd’s life, continued relatively unchanged after Floyd’s death. In order to showcase what about the contemporary newspaper accounts, and the subsequent sources, facilitated the myth of Floyd as an outlaw-hero, the ideas presented by folklorist Richard Meyer in his definition and construction of an outlawhero has been called upon. Using Meyer’s twelve elements this thesis has analysed both contemporary newspapers such as the New York Times, The Washington Post and the East Liverpool Review, as well as cultural sources such and Woody Guthrie’s ballad, Pretty Boy Floyd, the novel The Grapes of Wrath and Pretty Boy Floyd a novel. This thesis identifies how the narrative constructed around Floyd’s life and his actions became that of an outlaw-hero, both in life and death.
Download or read book Public Enemies written by Bryan Burrough and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-04-29 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Public Enemies, bestselling author Bryan Burrough strips away the thick layer of myths put out by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI to tell the full story—for the first time—of the most spectacular crime wave in American history, the two-year battle between the young Hoover and the assortment of criminals who became national icons: John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the Barkers. In an epic feat of storytelling and drawing on a remarkable amount of newly available material on all the major figures involved, Burrough reveals a web of interconnections within the vast American underworld and demonstrates how Hoover’s G-men overcame their early fumbles to secure the FBI’s rise to power.
Download or read book Under an Outlaw Moon written by Dietrich Kalteis and published by ECW Press. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meet Depression-era newlyweds Bennie and Stella. He’s reckless, she’s naive. Longing for freedom from tough times, they rob a bank, setting off a series of events that quickly spin out of their control Under an Outlaw Moon is based on the true story of Depression-era bank robbers Bennie and Stella Mae Dickson. She’s a teenage outsider longing to fit in. He’s a few years older and he’s trouble. They meet at a local skating rink and the sparks fly. They marry and Stella dreams of a nice house with a swing out back, while Bennie figures out how to get enough money to make it happen. Setting his sights on the good life, he decides to rob a bank. Talking Stella into it, he lays out his plan and teaches her to shoot. The newlyweds celebrate her 16th birthday by robbing a local bank. They pull it off, but the score is small, and Bennie realizes the money won’t last long, so he plans a bigger robbery. What lays ahead is more than either of them bargained for. After J. Edgar Hoover finds out they crossed state lines, he declares them public enemies number one and two — wanted dead or alive. So much for the good life. The manhunt is on, and there’s little room for them to run.
Download or read book Go Down Together written by Jeff Guinn and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-12-25 with total page 650 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the moment they first cut a swathe of crime across 1930s America, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker have been glamorised in print, on screen and in legend. The reality of their brief and catastrophic lives is very different -- and far more fascinating. Combining exhaustive research with surprising, newly discovered material, author Jeff Guinn tells the real story of two youngsters from a filthy Dallas slum who fell in love and then willingly traded their lives for a brief interlude of excitement and, more important, fame. Thanks in great part to surviving relatives of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, who provided Guinn with access to never-before-published family documents and photographs, this book reveals the truth behind the myth, told with cinematic sweep and unprecedented insight by a master storyteller.
Download or read book American Outlaws written by Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2013-11-02 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Comprehensively covers Baby Face Nelson's most notorious shootouts and robberies, his relationship with John Dillinger, and the fatal Battle of Barrington. *Includes pictures of Baby Face Nelson and important people and places in his life. *Includes a Bibliography for further reading. "He had a baby face. He was good looking, hardly more than a boy, had dark hair and was wearing a gray topcoat and a brown felt hat, turned down brim." -The wife of Chicago Mayor Big Bill Thompson describing the man who attacked her and stole her jewelry in October 1930. America has always preferred heroes who weren't clean cut, an informal ode to the rugged individualism and pioneering spirit that defined the nation in previous centuries. The early 19th century saw the glorification of frontier folk heroes like Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. After the Civil War, the outlaws of the West were more popular than the marshals, with Jesse James and Billy the Kid finding their way into dime novels. And at the height of the Great Depression in the 1930s, there were the "public enemies," common criminals and cold blooded murderers elevated to the level of folk heroes by a public frustrated with their own inability to make a living honestly. The man who became Public Enemy Number One after the deaths of John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd was Lester Joseph Gillis, whose alias "George Nelson" eventually gave way to the nickname "Baby Face Nelson." Despite the almost playfully innocent nickname, and the fact that he was not as notorious as two of his partners in crime, Dillinger and Floyd, Baby Face Nelson was the worst of them all. In an era where the outlaws were glorified as Robin Hood types, Baby Face was a merciless outlier who pulled triggers almost as fast as he lost his temper. By the time fate caught up with Baby Face Nelson in November 1934 at the "Battle of Barrington," a shootout that left his body riddled with nearly 20 bullet holes, he was believed to have been responsible for the deaths of more FBI agents than anybody else in American history. It was a distinction he would have appreciated; during one bank robbery, Baby Face Nelson gleefully screamed "I got one!" after shooting police officer Hale Keith several times. Due to his association with Dillinger and his own crime spree, Baby Face Nelson became a fixture of pop culture and was the main character in a few Hollywood films two decades after his death. Though he is not remembered as colorfully as Dillinger or Bonnie and Clyde, he is often remembered paradoxically as being a devoted family man who even had his wife and children on the run with him. American Outlaws: The Life and Legacy of Baby Face Nelson looks at the life and crime of the famous outlaw, but it also humanizes him and examines his lasting legacy. Along with pictures of Baby Face Nelson and important people, places, and events in his life, you will learn about the infamous public enemy like you never have before, in no time at all.
Download or read book Pretty Boy written by Bill Brooks and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2003-08 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the Western classic, "The Stone Garden: The Epic Life of Billy the Kid, " comes the life of one of the Depression's most dangerous outlaw, Pretty Boy Floyd.
Download or read book On the Trail of Pretty Boy Floyd written by William Richard Draper and published by . This book was released on 1946 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book John Dillinger written by Dary Matera and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2005-05-20 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Dillinger is an adrenaline-fueled narrative that reignites America's fascination with the suave and deadly desperado who became the FBI's first Public Enemy, whose story—until now—has been riddled with rumors and fiction. Dillinger and his bank-robbing gang cut a criminal swath never to be equaled, thrilling a nation in the throes of the Great Depression. When caught, Dillinger staged one of the most harrowing prison escapes imaginable—only to finally be betrayed by the infamous "Lady in Red." John Dillinger brings to light bank robberies never before reported; detailed plans for major crimes that Dillinger nearly implemented; the revelation that the Lady in Red was actually a police plant; and the startling motives behind John Dillinger's execution by rogue FBI agents. With access to the thousands of sources collected in the world's foremost Dillinger archives—including dozens of photographs—New York Times bestselling author Matera describes every robbery, shoot-out, and prison escape as though he had choreographed them himself.
Download or read book The Lives and Times of Bonnie Clyde written by E. R. Milner and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2003-07-01 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relying on primary sources— oral history interviews, personal memoirs, newspaper articles, official records, diaries, and letters— E. R. Milner cuts through myth and legend to create this startling portrait of the real Bonnie and Clyde. In his prologue, Milner introduces Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, showing them as they drive along a rural Louisiana lane toward the ambush that would put a dramatic end to their turbulent lives of crime. Milner then traces their backgrounds, noting the events that bring the two outlaws together. The ensuing adventures of Bonnie and Clyde featured gun battles, narrow escapes and captures, frequent moves, and, of necessity, several shifts in personnel over a short period of time. It was a life of wild action, betrayal, and sometimes even gallantry. In the abstract, an aura of romance surrounded this violent pair. Although the mythology surrounding Bonnie and Clyde is charged with drama and fascination, Milner reveals the truth behind the bloody legend, carefully gleaning materials from obscure locally published accounts, previously untapped court records, and archived but unpublished oral history accounts from some sixty victims, neighbors, relatives, and police who were involved in the exploits of the infamous duo. And the truth proves to be sufficiently exciting. Romance aside, the Barrow gang carved a grisly swath through Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. The string of deaths was long— and real: Akota, Oklahoma, sheriff severely wounded, deputy killed; Sherman, Texas, grocery clerk killed; Temple, Texas, man killed as gang attempts to steal his car; Joplin, Missouri, two officers killed; Alma, Arkansas, police officer killed; Crockette, Texas, prison guard killed; Miami, Oklahoma, police officer killed. Milner traces this violent path until 23 May 1934, when Bonnie and Clyde die in an ambush. Even dead, they draw crowds and are buried in a circus-like atmosphere. In death they continue to intrigue us in ways few criminals had before or have since.
Download or read book Lawman to Outlaw written by Brad Smith and published by . This book was released on 2003-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book American Outlaws written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Comprehensively covers Baby Face Nelson's most notorious shootouts and robberies, his relationship with John Dillinger, and the fatal Battle of Barrington. *Includes pictures of Baby Face Nelson and important people and places in his life. *Includes a Bibliography for further reading. "He had a baby face. He was good looking, hardly more than a boy, had dark hair and was wearing a gray topcoat and a brown felt hat, turned down brim." -The wife of Chicago Mayor Big Bill Thompson describing the man who attacked her and stole her jewelry in October 1930. America has always preferred heroes who weren't clean cut, an informal ode to the rugged individualism and pioneering spirit that defined the nation in previous centuries. The early 19th century saw the glorification of frontier folk heroes like Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. After the Civil War, the outlaws of the West were more popular than the marshals, with Jesse James and Billy the Kid finding their way into dime novels. And at the height of the Great Depression in the 1930s, there were the "public enemies," common criminals and cold blooded murderers elevated to the level of folk heroes by a public frustrated with their own inability to make a living honestly. The man who became Public Enemy Number One after the deaths of John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd was Lester Joseph Gillis, whose alias "George Nelson" eventually gave way to the nickname "Baby Face Nelson." Despite the almost playfully innocent nickname, and the fact that he was not as notorious as two of his partners in crime, Dillinger and Floyd, Baby Face Nelson was the worst of them all. In an era where the outlaws were glorified as Robin Hood types, Baby Face was a merciless outlier who pulled triggers almost as fast as he lost his temper. By the time fate caught up with Baby Face Nelson in November 1934 at the "Battle of Barrington," a shootout that left his body riddled with nearly 20 bullet holes, he was believed to have been responsible for the deaths of more FBI agents than anybody else in American history. It was a distinction he would have appreciated; during one bank robbery, Baby Face Nelson gleefully screamed "I got one!" after shooting police officer Hale Keith several times. Due to his association with Dillinger and his own crime spree, Baby Face Nelson became a fixture of pop culture and was the main character in a few Hollywood films two decades after his death. Though he is not remembered as colorfully as Dillinger or Bonnie and Clyde, he is often remembered paradoxically as being a devoted family man who even had his wife and children on the run with him. American Outlaws: The Life and Legacy of Baby Face Nelson looks at the life and crime of the famous outlaw, but it also humanizes him and examines his lasting legacy. Along with pictures of Baby Face Nelson and important people, places, and events in his life, you will learn about the infamous public enemy like you never have before, in no time at all.
