In Search of Detroit's Purple Gang

Photo credit: Don Gutz

I just returned from a research trip to the Walter Reuther Library and the Wyandotte Historical Museum to find some local color about Detroit's Purple Gang and the Prohibition era. Finding anything new about this group of Jewish mobsters after almost 100 years is like recovering bootlegged Canadian booze from the bottom of the Detroit River--what hasn't been dredged up already remains buried deep beneath the sand.

Obtaining simple documents like vital records for known Purple Gang members is next to impossible. Descendants of Purple Gangsters--protective or ashamed of their notorious family members--jealously guard their family documents, relics, and photographs. The trauma of losing husbands, brothers, uncles, and fathers to gang warfare and inter-gang disputes reflected badly on a family's reputation within their Jewish community. Their personal stories were not to be talked of in public, with the press, or even with younger family members who were kept in the dark. The less said, the better.

A Purple Gang roundup photo with several predominate members.

Stories of the gang's early years are the stuff of folklore and their legacy is mythic. What remains of the Purple Gang's real story is sprinkled throughout the pages of vintage 1930s-1940s newspaper articles written in real time as the gang achieved notoriety by becoming the dominant gang in Prohibition Detroit. Once the press gave the gang a name and marquee status, law enforcement went after them with a vengeance.

My nonfiction treatment of the Purple Gang saga is entitled The Elusive Purple Gang--Detroit's Kosher Nostra. It will be a concise history of their rise from juvenile delinquents committing petty street crime to young adults controlling Detroit's rackets during the city's most lawless and deadly period of its history. Rather than assume an academic voice, I chose to take on the voice of a storyteller to attract a popular audience of readers unfamiliar with the Purple Gang's history. The release of the book will coincide with the 100th anniversary of Federal Prohibition in 2020.

The Elusive Purple Gang post: https://fornology.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-elusive-purple-gang.html