Prompt 4: Based on what you find in the readings, what can outlaws tell us about the changing nature of laws and government authority in American history?
Outlaws became big in a time of when the everyday man felt beat down by those on top, by those in charge. The Depression was hitting the nation hard, and there was nothing the heads of households could do to fight back. One day they had money, the next, they just didn’t. The banks had nothing to give them. So when people heard tales of men taking charge and fighting back, outside the law or not, they were intrigued.
Those laws that the outlaws were breaking, and the government that they were rebelling against were the ones that had taken away everyone’s personal power. Those law-breakin men were sick of being held down, and so dispense, as White calls it, “private justice”, as opposed to “the order provided by law”.
Gorn describes it even better, comparing Dillenger and Hoover to Frued’s Id and Superego. In psychology, the Id is described as the pleasure-centered part of someone’s personality, and the Superego as the conscience. Americans at the time knew that Hoover was supposed to be the good guy, but Dillenger was the man they wanted to be.
There was just very little respect for the government in this era, once everyone’s hope was at it’s lowest. And seeing the outlaws all over the news, evading capture, driving cool cars, and sticking it to the man, helped ease the pain of the common man.
The perception of the government and law wasn’t the only thing changing. The law was pulling itself together, from being disorganized to creating the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and finally carrying guns on them. Forensics like fingerprinting were being used for the first time in attempts to catch Dillinger. Hoover, “ever vigilant about his agency’s image”, made sure that the public was aware that catching Dillinger was a “triumph of scientific investigation and sophisticated police work” (Gorn).
Both the perception by the American people and the new actions of the government and the law in general were changing rapidly in the era of the Great Depression, and it made outlaws like Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, and Jesse James famous men.