Secret Societies

Through the rise and fall of the first US Mafia boss of bosses Giuseppe Morello and his powerful brother-in-law Ignazio Lupo, Secret Societies examines the early development of the Sicilian-American criminal network. It does so through photos, documents and contemporary articles illuminating the period of the 1890s–1920s, from the outbreak of the “Black Hand” phenomenon into the Prohibition Era.

In this important stage, the hierarchies of crime families were established and reinforced; Mafia organizations found new recruits and new resources by spreading across the US; national structure and conflict-resolution mechanisms were put in place; and the criminal society’s most serious rivals were defeated and absorbed.

Edited by Tom Hunt.

Tom edits and publishes the journal, “Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement,” the Writers of Wrongs blog of crime historians (writersofwrongs.com) and the American Mafia history website (mafiahistory.us).

“So meticulously researched it reads like a life’s work, Secret Societies examines the origins of the Sicilian-American Mafia. The focus is the 1890s-1920s, a period before the 1931 foundation of the ‘five families’ that is largely undocumented.” – Stack Magazines