Gangster traditionally came from poor immigrant families who came to America in pursuit of the American dream. The reality that they faced in the land of promise stood in stark contrast to the dream of prosperity. Faced with abject poverty and xenophobia immigrants found the paths to upward mobility all but blocked.
In 1890 Jacob Riis published the photo-documentary "How The Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York." The invention of flash photography allowed for the first images of the unlit slums which provided the American population with the first look at its own city life.
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