Don't Mess With Nucky.. or Will You?

Played by Steve Buscemi, Enoch "Nucky" Thompson is the main American politician/gangster in the series. He is Treasurer of Atlantic City in the 1920's and runs the town. His brother, Eli, is the Atlantic City Sherrif and Nucky uses his brother to control the law and be the boss. He also has many friends in high and low places. At the start of the series he is the one to be listened to and has the final world. Across the two seasons that have aired, he is stabs many in the back, but gets it even worse by others. His struggle for power through keeping power of bootlegging alcohol and corruption perfectly shows how life was in the mob 20s.

I could go on and on about the plot of the series and Nucky's accomplishments and struggles, but, I more want to connect this to our history class.

I am using Nucky Thompson as a way to explain the Prohibition. For majority of the series so far, Nucky is one of the big players in running the underground dealings of alcohol to different buyers and restaurants even during the Prohibiton. Almost every scene in the show, he meets with clients or "friends" and starts their deal with a glass of whiskey. Any restaurant serves Nucky with alcohol because he supplies to everyone in Atlantic city.

 According to our HIST book, Prohibition became the law of the land in 1919. With difficulty to enforce, the government passed the Volstead Act in 1919 as well as strict punishments were in place for violating the amendment. Nucky Thompson perfectly represents the corruption of officials during this time because he was an elected politician for the New Jersey Treasurer of Atlantic City, and embezzled and used the cities money to work his underground deals of bootlegging and secret distillers of alcohol during this time. At one point in the beginning of the show, Bucky;s protégée Jimmy, introduces a young friend of his to Nucky to help with the bootlegging. His "little friend" went by a "little name" of Al Capone. I'll highlight Al Capone in a later blog but this is one of the true details of the show in relation to  actual US history.

Here is a picture of Nucky confiding in his right hand man, Jimmy, in how to do business.

And then here is a photo showing how many deals went down with bootlegging alcohol and "drop-offs". You really couldn't even trust your own brother during the mob times.


Eventually certain federal agents and police go after in investigation against Nucky Thompson, and his power and reign is shot down and put into the spotlight during the show. This relates to the crackdown on crime the government started to focus on during this time in history. What was so interesting was the mix between politicians and criminals. Before getting into Boardwalk Empire, I never really understood how much those two subjects intertwined. It is crazy that the people that are supposed to be our elected leaders and officials were the ones behind most crime and illegal movements. I am so glad that that is not how our government is today.. Or is it? Living in San Diego I hear the news with the war on cartels with us and Mexico and the new reports of police and DEA agents being caught for helping the bad drug dealer guys by not saying anything and accepting money. The leaders and politicians and police were all regular civilians at one time and its just crazy how even today, almost 100 years later, I can see a pattern in the corruption of the illegal substance trade.