Elliot Ness

Born April 19, 1903, Chicago — died May 7, 1957, Coudersport, Pa.) U.S. law-enforcement official. He was 26 years old when he was hired as a special agent of the U.S. Department of Justice to head its Chicago Prohibition bureau, with the express purpose of breaking up the bootlegging network of Al Capone. He formed a nine-man team of extremely dedicated and unbribable officers, "the Untouchables"; the evidence they collected helped send Capone to prison for income-tax evasion in 1931. After Prohibition was ended in 1933, Ness headed the alcohol-tax unit of the U.S. Treasury department (1933 – 35); he was later director of public safety in Cleveland (1935 – 41) and director of a division of the Federal Security Agency (1941 – 45).

Speakeasy

A speakeasy was an establishment which illegally sold alcoholic beverages during the period of United States history known as Prohibition (1920–1932, longer in some states). During this time, the sale, manufacture, and transportation (bootlegging) of alcohol was illegal.Speakeasies became more popular and numerous as the Prohibition years progressed, and more of them were operated by people connected to organized crime. Although police and Bureau of Prohibition agents would raid them and arrest the owners and patrons, the business of running speakeasies was so lucrative that they still moved strong in America. In major cities, speakeasies had food, live music, floor shows, and striptease dancers.

Speakeasies