This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/26/2022
[CHICAGO CRIME]. 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 (upper joint cracked, lacking front free endpaper). FIRST EDITION, LAID IN WITH THE RARE MAP: 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 separations to folds). An important work 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 includes “Hobohemia” in the Gold Coast, “Jewish-Polish Frontier” in Douglas Park, and “Slave Town” in what is now Randolph Street Market.