Mafia Monograph

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This site critically examines a key document of American law enforcement in the 1950's - the FBI's 'Mafia Monograph.' The Monograph is probably the most comprehensive document we have of the assumptions that guided American public servants and politicians as they attempted to shut down the 'Cosa Nostra' - or, by dramatising this threat, to fashion a public profile for themselves and their organisations. 

Although I have not clearly defined a period of study, the events and evidence covered in this site span the decades from the second phase of Italian migration to the United States (c.1900-1915) until the late 1950's when the Monograph was published. The site does not encompass the present, but I invite you to make your own comparisons and draw your own parallels, as I have. 

The entire Monograph is 284 pages in length. The first half of the Monograph discusses the history of the Mafia in Sicily, while the second deals with its 'migration' to the United States. This site focuses on a 30-page excerpt from the second half of the Monograph. To see the entire document, follow the Monograph Online link below.

You can look at this excerpt in several ways. Most simply, you can view it by itself, without any mediating organisation or interpretation. Secondly, you can view a version of the document incorporating  links to primary sources. These may assist you to understand the historical context in which ideas about the Mafia developed.

Finally, three thematic sections are provided. These situate the Monograph within some of the important  discourses which conditioned American understandings of the Mafia in the 1950's. The first discusses perceptions and prejudices about Italian-Americans, and how these emerge in the Monograph. The second looks at the approaches taken by the various Federal Law Enforcement bodies to policing and publicising the Mafia. Branching off from this section is a subsection devoted to Cold War Threats, which parallels the official construction of the internal Communist threat with that of the Mafia. This section has its own links to primary source materials.

In this site I have been lead by my research and existing preconceptions to fashion an argument about history, as I would if writing an essay. There is no lack of authorial presence in this site, nor is there intended to be! However, it is hoped that the inclusion of source materials and links will allow you to juxtapose material evidence with this argument, to contradict it if you wish, and  to develop your own perspective on this complex aspect of recent American history.