ITAL 2770 Midterm Review | Questions with 100% Correct Answers | Verified | Latest Update 2024

How did the Sicilian Mafia survive and flourish in the US at the beginning of the 20th century? - It adapted and transformed itself from a land-based/territorial control phenomenon to a transnational phenomenon - Traditional Sicilian mafia: a system of territorial dominance - The early mafia in the US: a transnational venture (import-export) What historical and social factors contributed to the rise of the American Mafia in the 1920s? - End of WWI/soldiers coming back from WWI and veterans who couldn't find a job Volstead Act of 1919: "no person shall manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, expoert, deliver or furnish any intoxicating liquor" Business opportunity for veterans with the mafia (providing alcohol to Americans who still wanted to consume it) - Alcohol - gambling - prostitution What made Al Capone a figure of both repulsion and attraction? - Repulsion: mobster, son of Italian immigrants (not Anglo-Saxon American) Attraction: an example of a self-made man (depicted as a man who came from humble beginnings); white What technical innovation allowed the film industry to capitalize on the figure of the Italian American mafioso? Why? - The advent of sound cinema in 1927 - express language difference of immigrants What is the typical story of a gangster film? - Plot: