This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 3/13/2021
THRASHER, Frederic M. (1892–1962). The Gang: A Study of 1,313 Gangs in Chicago. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, [1927]. 8vo. Publisher’s tan buckram, orange title labels printed in black on upper cover and spine; original unclipped dust jacket (spine panel chipped with tears, extremities rubbed with light dust soiling). FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR: “To my dear friend, Rusty Robbins/Sincerely,/Frederick M. Thrasher”. –– [Laid in as issued with:] Chicago’s Gangland… 1923–1926. (648 x 445 mm). Offset lithograph thematic map printed in red and black documenting the distribution of gang activity in Chicago (partial separation to upper fold with small tear); folded and housed in original paper slip, as issued. An important work scarcely seen in the original dust jacket and with the folded map laid in of Chicago’s 1920s gang landscape. Thrasher applied thematic mapping to depict organized criminal activity to help support his thesis that such activity thrives in urban spaces. His concern was that second-generation immigrant children evolved from “play groups” and into youth gangs. His central conclusion was the identification of a place called “Gangland” … “a geographically and socially interstitial area of the city”. Numerous notations printed in red provide added detail of gang territories that include “Hobohemia” in Gold Coast, “Jewish-Polish Frontier” in Douglas Park, and “Slave Town” in what is now Randolph Street Market.