This photo has been taken one ordinary day. The homeless are waiting for their turn to eat hot soup.
Al Capone started the first soup kitchen, which employed a few people, but fed many more. “Soup kitchens” like the one Al Capone founded provided the only meals that some unemployed Americans had. Soup kitchens spread especially during the Great Depression, before the World War II.
Al Capone was a gangster, who made a fortune without taking into consideration the prohibitions of those years. 1920-1933, Al Capone who had Robin Hood’s mystique and illegal way of acting dealt with alcohol trade. Though alcohol was prohibited during those years, people accepted and respected the gangster. Al Capone’s wish was to clean up his image. 120 000 meals were served by Capone Free Soup Kitchen. Al Capone’s soup kitchen became one of the strangest sight Chicagoans had ever seen.
It is not by chance that soon the media reported Capone was doing more for the poor than the entire US government. To be closer to the hungry society he sometimes entered the kitchen, offered a handshake and exchanged some words. In 1930 on Thanksgiving Day Al Capone announced that he had fed more than 5.000 people.
This photo has been taken one ordinary day. The homeless are waiting for their turn to eat hot soup.
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