Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Scottish Chicago?

2007; Routledge; Volume: 4; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2752/147800407x243505

1478-0046

Andrew Davies,

Scottish History and National Identity

During the late 1920s, Glasgow acquired an unwelcome notoriety as the Scottish Chicago. Accounts of the city's street gangs were laced with cross-references to the American underworld in the era of Al Capone, and this rhetorical twinning of Glasgow with Chicago was freely deployed not just by journalists, but by police officers and the judicial authorities. An older stereotype of the 'hooligan' was increasingly eclipsed by the more modern, and more dangerous, figure of the 'gangster'. This delighted the gang members themselves but caused consternation among Glasgow's civic authorities, who grew increasingly alarmed at the damage to the city's prospects of economic renewal caused by newspaper exposés of 'Chicago in Scotland'.