Al Capone

A lot of Italian immigrants, like many immigrants of all nationalities, came to the New World with very few items. Many of the immigrants were peasants escaping the lack of opportunity in rural Italy. Gabriele Capone, Alphonse's father, was one of 43,000 Italians who arrived in the U.S. in 1894. He was a barber by trade and could read and write in his native language. He was from the village of Castellmarre di Stabia, sixteen miles south of Naples. Gabriele, who was thirty years old, brought his pregnant twenty-seven-year-old wife Teresina , his two-year-old son Vincenzo and his infant son Raffaele. Unlike many Italian immigrants, he did not owe anyone for his passage over. His plan was to do whatever work was necessary until he could open his own barber shop.

Gabriele's ability to read and write allowed him to get a job in a grocery store until he was able to open his barber shop. Teresina, in spite of her duties as a mother, took on sewing piecework to add to the family coffers. Her third child, Salvatore was born in 1895. Her fourth son and the first to be born and conceived in the New World was born January 17, 1899. His name was Alphonse Capone. A block from Al's home was the parish church, St Michael's, where the Reverend Garofalo baptized him several months after his birth.

At the age of five in 1904, he went to Public School 7 on Adams Street. Educational prospects for Italian children were very poor. The school system was deeply prejudiced against them and did little to encourage any interest in higher education, while the immigrant parents expected their children to leave school as soon as they were old enough to work. Al did quite well in school until the sixth grade when his steady record of B's declined rapidly. At fourteen, he lost his temper at the teacher, she hit him and he hit her back. He was expelled and never went to school again. About this time, his family moved from their house on Navy Street to 21 Garfield Place. This move would have a lasting impact on Al because in this new neighborhood he would meet the people who would have the most influence on his future: his wife Mae and the gangster Johnny Torrio.