This thread is for alternative biographies of OTL historical figures, any historical figure, on how their lives could have turned out... This isn't a TL so feel free to ignore the butterflies from this post
. Anyone who wants to contribute, feel free to do so with any historical figure you like. Please be original
. More than one biography on the same person are allowed btw since this isn't a real TL. I'll start with someone we all know...
Joe Steel (1878-1949)
Joe Steel, born Iosif Dzugashvili, (Born: December 6 1878 [O.S.]. Died: January 16 1949) was not expected to turn out the way he did in spite of where he grew up. He was born in Gori, Georgia, then part of the Russian Empire and it was a lawless and violent place with gang wars, street brawls and clandestine wrestling matches and young Iosif was frequently involved in brawls as a child. He was son of a Georgian cobbler named Besarion and a woman born a serf Ketevan Geladze, both poor people. His father had a reasonably successful business until he became an alcoholic and violently abused his wife and child. Iosif fell ill with smallpox at the age of seven and around this time his mother decided she wanted her son to have a theological carreer as a priest for the Russian Orthodox Church. Besarion wanted his son to become his apprentice and succeed him in running his cobbler business and exploded in rage upon hearing this. In a fit of rage he nearly beat his wife to death and broke the windows of the nearby tavern before attacking the town police chief, killing him accidently. Besarion was sentenced to death for murder and upon this, Ketevan decided that she would have to find a better life elsewhere since she and her son were no longer welcome in Gori. She decided to leave for the United States. After a long and hazardous trip in the cargo space of a Russian ship, she arrived in New York and managed to get into America and settled in East Hills, Long Island where a large community of Russian Americans lived.
Ketevan, badly beaten by her husband could only perform light jobs, but had to accept a job in a shop as a cleaning lady to feed her ten year old son. Young Iosif Dzugashvili proved to be adept at learning and quickly mastered Russian and English although he failed to get rid of his strong accent in either language. He went to school in spite of his poor situation and quickly showed his leadership skills as he, despite his short stature and pockmarked face, gathered a group of loyal friends around him through his high intelligence, charisma, organizational skill and determination. To support his mother, Iosif went into crime in his teens so she wouldn't have to work anymore and was arrested a number of times although police considered him a small-timer at the time.
His gang beat up fellow students in school and forced them to pay protection money, part of which Iosif Dzugashvili donated to his mother who never asked where the money came from. He quickly started to engage in other forms of racketeering than just small scale extortion and protection money when his gang started to organize illegal lotteries for the Russian émigré community in Long Island, starting around 1900. His gang, however, remained small with only a few people in the inner circle and less than a hundred actual members although many more profited from this small syndicate engaging in marginally criminal activities like racketeering, lotteries, selling alcohol and organizing a number of brothels (although prostitution was still legal at this time) in Long Island all of which had legal fronts. It was around 1900 that Dzugashvili changed his name to Joe Steel and his gang came to dominate East Hills. This was just the start of the carreer of the so-called 'Tsar of Crime' as time has shown us.
The rapid growth started with the ratification of the eighteenth amendment in 1919, more commonly known as Prohibition. It was around this time that the major Italian crime families started to rise too, mainly under Salvatore Maranzano and Joe "The Boss" Masseria who started to bootleg liquor en masse. The Italians outnumbered the Russian-Georgian gangs by far and Joe Steel made a strategic alliance with Maranzano who had his base in Brooklyn on the south of Long Island where he used his business as a real estate broker as a legal front for his numerous illicit activities, including the production of vodka by his subordinate Joe Steel. Joe had great organizational skill and due to his allegedly sociopathic and paranoid nature combined with high intelligence (shrewdness) he was able to manipulate people. According to a contemporary "he knew exactly which buttons to push with which people", including police officers and politicians. His paranoid nature also led to his masterful use of informants and him getting rid of competitors of his own as well as those of Maranzano who sought to expand at the expense of Masseria into the Bronx and the rest of East Side Manhattan.
His skills as an organizer, manipulator, intimidator and his ability to point the police in the wrong direction quickly made him Maranzano's second hand man, giving him and his Russian-Georgian clique of comrades a lot of power. The mafia war was being won by Maranzano and Joe Steel who terrified Maranzano's opponents, including Masseria. Masseria offered peace and Joe Steel, in the greatest ruse in mafia history, pretended to accept in order to take the east coast. Joe "The Boss" Masseria was assassinated, taking twenty bullets from a Tommy gun at close range in a restaurant on Coney Island in bright daylight along with his own second in command, Charlie Luciano in 1929. Joe Adonis and Bugsy Siegel were killed as well and Vito Genoveso was intimidated into joining Maranzano.
At this time, Joe Steel felt powerful enough to take over Maranzano's criminal empire and by now Joe Steel couldn't be called anything else than a gangster. In 1930 Maranzano was killed and dumped in New York harbor to wash up later. Steel proceeded to take over this crime syndicate and expanded his business of bootlegging liquor (including Scottish whiskey, Caribbean rum and Russian vodka among others), running hundreds of illegal brothels, bribing high officials, gambling, assassinations, gun running and racketeering over the eastern seaboard. His influence went so far that he intimidated John P. O'Brien not to run for mayor of New York so Joseph V. McKee won because he was more compliant and thus got Joe Steel's endorsement. Less commonly known is his charity work, providing food to the poor and running a number of shelters for the homeless, all funded by his illegal activities though. And so Joe Steel went from criminal to controversial as many Russian Americans still uphold his legacy as a do-gooder.
He made another strategic alliance with Chicago mobster Al Capone, but he was caught for tax evasion in 1935 although by now he was decidly in Joe Steel's influence anyway even if Joe Steel left him in the illusion he was still in charge of Chicago. His mental capacities had been declining from neurosyphilis which caused him to lose his grip on reality and in Alcatraz he was isolated from the world. Joe Steel took over in Chicago and spread his criminal empire into Illinois and Ohio. His syndicate made billions a year by now. He was virtually untouchable and his power was signified when he had New York's District Attorney Gregory Francis Noonan assassinated. Being an idealist he opposed Steel because he was morally wrong. Steel's crime syndicate found its first threat as Noonan ordered police raids and started to move against Steel's operation, uncovering a number of fronts. There were several lawsuits although, frustratingly, Steel received low sentences and made bail every time. Noonan, however, arrested a number of lower ranking mobsters like Vito Genovese. After a mere year in office, Noonan was killed in what was dismissed as a robbery gone wrong although everyone knew where the order had come from.
Vito was quickly released on parole although by now Georgian-Mingrelian émigré Lavrenti Beria, known as Laurent Beria after his name change, had risen to power. He was attracted to Steel because he allowed him to act out his violent and sadistic tendencies. By now Steel's mother had died although Steel's motives for crime by now were no longer providing for her. He had taken a blow when Probition was ended although the vastness of his network allowed it to survive. He spent the 1940s consolidating his east coast empire while trying to keep his people from being drafted for the war in Europe and Asia. At the height of his power he was assassinated himself by Laurent Beria, a not glorious end for the greatest crime boss ever. He had entrusted his righthand man with too much power, his only mistake and it had proven fatal.
Beria would oversee the relative decline of the Russian-Italian syndicates against new gangs although the enormous size to this day prevents the gangs from taking over their home base of Long Island and East Side Manhattan. Joe Steel has thus left us with a legacy of crime. His fame, however, is universal as is expressed by the soon to be released movie "Steel", a remake of the legendary 1972 movie of the same name by Francis Ford Coppola. Steel left no wife or children and was ironically outlived by a retired sickly Al Capone.
Joe Steel
T.E. Dewey, Joe Steel: the Life and Times of the Tsar of Crime, New York, 1989.
Joe Steel (1878-1949)
Joe Steel, born Iosif Dzugashvili, (Born: December 6 1878 [O.S.]. Died: January 16 1949) was not expected to turn out the way he did in spite of where he grew up. He was born in Gori, Georgia, then part of the Russian Empire and it was a lawless and violent place with gang wars, street brawls and clandestine wrestling matches and young Iosif was frequently involved in brawls as a child. He was son of a Georgian cobbler named Besarion and a woman born a serf Ketevan Geladze, both poor people. His father had a reasonably successful business until he became an alcoholic and violently abused his wife and child. Iosif fell ill with smallpox at the age of seven and around this time his mother decided she wanted her son to have a theological carreer as a priest for the Russian Orthodox Church. Besarion wanted his son to become his apprentice and succeed him in running his cobbler business and exploded in rage upon hearing this. In a fit of rage he nearly beat his wife to death and broke the windows of the nearby tavern before attacking the town police chief, killing him accidently. Besarion was sentenced to death for murder and upon this, Ketevan decided that she would have to find a better life elsewhere since she and her son were no longer welcome in Gori. She decided to leave for the United States. After a long and hazardous trip in the cargo space of a Russian ship, she arrived in New York and managed to get into America and settled in East Hills, Long Island where a large community of Russian Americans lived.
Ketevan, badly beaten by her husband could only perform light jobs, but had to accept a job in a shop as a cleaning lady to feed her ten year old son. Young Iosif Dzugashvili proved to be adept at learning and quickly mastered Russian and English although he failed to get rid of his strong accent in either language. He went to school in spite of his poor situation and quickly showed his leadership skills as he, despite his short stature and pockmarked face, gathered a group of loyal friends around him through his high intelligence, charisma, organizational skill and determination. To support his mother, Iosif went into crime in his teens so she wouldn't have to work anymore and was arrested a number of times although police considered him a small-timer at the time.
His gang beat up fellow students in school and forced them to pay protection money, part of which Iosif Dzugashvili donated to his mother who never asked where the money came from. He quickly started to engage in other forms of racketeering than just small scale extortion and protection money when his gang started to organize illegal lotteries for the Russian émigré community in Long Island, starting around 1900. His gang, however, remained small with only a few people in the inner circle and less than a hundred actual members although many more profited from this small syndicate engaging in marginally criminal activities like racketeering, lotteries, selling alcohol and organizing a number of brothels (although prostitution was still legal at this time) in Long Island all of which had legal fronts. It was around 1900 that Dzugashvili changed his name to Joe Steel and his gang came to dominate East Hills. This was just the start of the carreer of the so-called 'Tsar of Crime' as time has shown us.
The rapid growth started with the ratification of the eighteenth amendment in 1919, more commonly known as Prohibition. It was around this time that the major Italian crime families started to rise too, mainly under Salvatore Maranzano and Joe "The Boss" Masseria who started to bootleg liquor en masse. The Italians outnumbered the Russian-Georgian gangs by far and Joe Steel made a strategic alliance with Maranzano who had his base in Brooklyn on the south of Long Island where he used his business as a real estate broker as a legal front for his numerous illicit activities, including the production of vodka by his subordinate Joe Steel. Joe had great organizational skill and due to his allegedly sociopathic and paranoid nature combined with high intelligence (shrewdness) he was able to manipulate people. According to a contemporary "he knew exactly which buttons to push with which people", including police officers and politicians. His paranoid nature also led to his masterful use of informants and him getting rid of competitors of his own as well as those of Maranzano who sought to expand at the expense of Masseria into the Bronx and the rest of East Side Manhattan.
His skills as an organizer, manipulator, intimidator and his ability to point the police in the wrong direction quickly made him Maranzano's second hand man, giving him and his Russian-Georgian clique of comrades a lot of power. The mafia war was being won by Maranzano and Joe Steel who terrified Maranzano's opponents, including Masseria. Masseria offered peace and Joe Steel, in the greatest ruse in mafia history, pretended to accept in order to take the east coast. Joe "The Boss" Masseria was assassinated, taking twenty bullets from a Tommy gun at close range in a restaurant on Coney Island in bright daylight along with his own second in command, Charlie Luciano in 1929. Joe Adonis and Bugsy Siegel were killed as well and Vito Genoveso was intimidated into joining Maranzano.
At this time, Joe Steel felt powerful enough to take over Maranzano's criminal empire and by now Joe Steel couldn't be called anything else than a gangster. In 1930 Maranzano was killed and dumped in New York harbor to wash up later. Steel proceeded to take over this crime syndicate and expanded his business of bootlegging liquor (including Scottish whiskey, Caribbean rum and Russian vodka among others), running hundreds of illegal brothels, bribing high officials, gambling, assassinations, gun running and racketeering over the eastern seaboard. His influence went so far that he intimidated John P. O'Brien not to run for mayor of New York so Joseph V. McKee won because he was more compliant and thus got Joe Steel's endorsement. Less commonly known is his charity work, providing food to the poor and running a number of shelters for the homeless, all funded by his illegal activities though. And so Joe Steel went from criminal to controversial as many Russian Americans still uphold his legacy as a do-gooder.
He made another strategic alliance with Chicago mobster Al Capone, but he was caught for tax evasion in 1935 although by now he was decidly in Joe Steel's influence anyway even if Joe Steel left him in the illusion he was still in charge of Chicago. His mental capacities had been declining from neurosyphilis which caused him to lose his grip on reality and in Alcatraz he was isolated from the world. Joe Steel took over in Chicago and spread his criminal empire into Illinois and Ohio. His syndicate made billions a year by now. He was virtually untouchable and his power was signified when he had New York's District Attorney Gregory Francis Noonan assassinated. Being an idealist he opposed Steel because he was morally wrong. Steel's crime syndicate found its first threat as Noonan ordered police raids and started to move against Steel's operation, uncovering a number of fronts. There were several lawsuits although, frustratingly, Steel received low sentences and made bail every time. Noonan, however, arrested a number of lower ranking mobsters like Vito Genovese. After a mere year in office, Noonan was killed in what was dismissed as a robbery gone wrong although everyone knew where the order had come from.
Vito was quickly released on parole although by now Georgian-Mingrelian émigré Lavrenti Beria, known as Laurent Beria after his name change, had risen to power. He was attracted to Steel because he allowed him to act out his violent and sadistic tendencies. By now Steel's mother had died although Steel's motives for crime by now were no longer providing for her. He had taken a blow when Probition was ended although the vastness of his network allowed it to survive. He spent the 1940s consolidating his east coast empire while trying to keep his people from being drafted for the war in Europe and Asia. At the height of his power he was assassinated himself by Laurent Beria, a not glorious end for the greatest crime boss ever. He had entrusted his righthand man with too much power, his only mistake and it had proven fatal.
Beria would oversee the relative decline of the Russian-Italian syndicates against new gangs although the enormous size to this day prevents the gangs from taking over their home base of Long Island and East Side Manhattan. Joe Steel has thus left us with a legacy of crime. His fame, however, is universal as is expressed by the soon to be released movie "Steel", a remake of the legendary 1972 movie of the same name by Francis Ford Coppola. Steel left no wife or children and was ironically outlived by a retired sickly Al Capone.
Joe Steel
T.E. Dewey, Joe Steel: the Life and Times of the Tsar of Crime, New York, 1989.
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