The Untouchables, Road to Perdition, Bugsy Malone – Prohibition gave us some all-time great gangster movies, but in the 1920s the rise of organized crime was all too real. Speakeasies needed suppliers, and bootlegging helped make crime bosses like Al Capone, pictured here in a black suit in 1927, into millionaires.

Gambling, prostitution, narcotics, bribery, robbery, protection rackets, and murder rounded out his roll call of misdeeds, and at one point he reportedly had half Chicago's police force on his payroll. Gang violence in the city peaked with 1929's St Valentine's Day Massacre – the execution-style killing of seven men loyal to George 'Bugs' Moran, a rival of Capone's.

Fascinating black-and-white photos of 1920s America