Herbert Asbury

Herbert Asbury
Born	(1889-09-01)September 1, 1889 Farmington, Missouri
Died	February 24, 1963(1963-02-24) (aged 73) New York City, New York
Occupation	Writer and journalist
Genre	True crime

Herbert Asbury (September 1, 1889 — February 24, 1963) was an American journalist and writer who is best known for his true crime books detailing crime during the 19th and early 20th century such as Gem of the Prairie, Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld and The Gangs of New York. The Gangs of New York was later adapted for film as Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (2002). However, the film adaptation of Gangs of New York was so loose that Gangs was nominated for "Best Original Screenplay" rather than as a screenplay adapted from another work.

In earlier decades, Asbury was known for his self-described "informal histories", which included descriptions of various cities, focusing on violence, crime, prostitution and lurid events.

Early life

Born in Farmington, Missouri, he was raised in a highly religious family which included several generations of devout Methodist preachers. During his early teens, Asbury became disenchanted with the local Southern Methodist church along with his siblings Mary, Emmett and Fred Asbury.

During World War I, Asbury enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army. He was later promoted to Sergeant, and then to Second Lieutenant, where he served in France until he was seriously wounded during a gas attack (his lungs were severely damaged and would result in health problems throughout his life). He eventually received an honorable discharge on January 1919.

H. L. Mencken & The American Mercury

Asbury achieved first notoriety with a story that H. L. Mencken published in his magazine, The American Mercury in 1926. The story detailed a prostitute from Asbury's hometown of Farmington, Missouri. The prostitute took her Protestant customers to the Catholic cemetery to conduct business, and took her Catholic customers to the Protestant cemetery; some in Farmington considered the prostitute beyond redemption.

The article caused a sensation: The Boston Watch and Ward Society had the magazine banned. Mencken then journeyed to Boston, sold a copy of his magazine on Boston Commons, and was arrested. Sales of the recently-founded Mercury boomed, and Asbury was a celebrity. Asbury then focused his attention of a series of articles debunking temperance crusader Carrie Nation.

Later career

Herbert continued working as a reporter for various newspapers including the Atlanta Georgian, the New York Sun, the New York Herald and the New York Tribune until 1928 when he decided to devote his time exclusively to writing. During this time, he wrote numerous books and magazine articles forcus on true crime. He was also involved in screenwriting and wrote several plays which appeared on Broadway, but none were successful.

After his final book The Great Illusion: An Informal History of Prohibition in 1950, he retired from writing and died on February 24, 1963 at the age 73.

Recent years

The 2002 film Gangs of New York revitalized interest in Asbury and many of Asbury's works, mostly chronicling the largely hidden history of the seamier side of American popular culture, have been reissued..

Although his books have long been popular within the true crime genre, commentators such as Luc Sante, Tyler Anbinder and Tracy Melton have suggested that Asbury took journalistic liberties with his material. On the other hand, Asbury's books have lengthy bibliographies, noting the newspapers, books, pamphlets, police reports and personal interviews he drew upon for his works. But his books, having been written for popular audiences, do not have in-text citations, which would make it easier to check the accuracy of his sources.

In 2005, Tracy Melton claimed in his book Hanging Henry Gambrill: The Violent Career of Baltimore's Plug Uglies, 1854-1860 that the Plug Uglies were actually a Baltimore-based gang. New York newspapers compared the Dead Rabbits to the Baltimore Plug Uglies following the July 4, 1857 riots, which occurred just a month after Plug Ugly involvement in the Know-Nothing Riot in Washington. Melton further speculated that Asbury had apparently read these accounts and inaccurately incorporated the Plug Uglies into his book The Gangs of New York.

Bibliography

• Up From Methodism 1926. (The title is intended as a reminiscence of Booker T. Washington's Up From Slavery.)
• A Methodist Saint : The Life of Bishop Asbury 1927. A biography of Asbury's progenitor, Rev. Francis Asbury

(The suggestion that Bishop Asbury was a progenitor of Herbert Asbury has to take into account the fact that the bishop lived and died a bachelor. Is Herbert descended from an illegitimate union? Not likely. H.L. Mencken and Herbert Asbury were playing a prank, and latter-day scholars have bought into it.)

• The Devil of Pei-ling 1927. A novel.
• The Tick of the Clock 1928. A novel.
• The Gangs of New York : An Informal History of the Underworld 1928. Reprinted in original format 1989 Dorset Press; ISBN 0-88029-429-9. Republished in 2001 with a foreword by Jorge Luis Borges.
• Not at Night: A Collection of Weird Tales 1928.
• The Bon Vivant's Companion : Or, How to Mix Drinks (with Jerry Thomas) 1928.
• [The Life of] Carry Nation 1928.
• Ye Olde Fire Laddies Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1930. An informal history of firefighting in New York City.
• The Barbary Coast : An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld 1933. 1933 ISBN 1-56025-408-4
• All Around the Town : Murder, Scandal, Riot and Mayhem in Old New York 1934. (reissued as a "Sequel to Gangs of New York)
• The Breathless Moment (with Philip van Doren Stern) 1935.
• The French Quarter : An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld 1936. ISBN 1-56025-494-7
• Sucker's Progress : An Informal History of Gambling in America 1938.
• Gem of the Prairie : An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld 1940. Northern Illinois University Press reissued it in 1986 with a preface by Perry R. Duis. It was again reissued as The Gangs of Chicago ISBN 1-56025-454-8
• The Golden Flood : An Informal History of America's First Oil Field Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1941 (often dated 1942).
• The Great Illusion: An Informal History of Prohibition 1950.

Filmography

Asbury is credited with three crime-thriller screenplays for Columbia Pictures, which he co-wrote with Fred Niblo Jr (1903-1973):

• Gangs of New York (1938)
• Name the Woman (1934)
• Among the Missing (1934)
• Fugitive Lady (1934)

Further reading

• Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers. p. 33.

External links

• HerbertAsbury.com, official website