Herbert Asbury was an American journalist and writer best known for his books detailing crime during the 19th and early-20th centuries, such as Gem of the Prairie: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld, The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld, Sucker's Progress: An Informal History of Gambling in America and The Gangs of New York. The Gangs of New York was later adapted for film as Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York. 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.
Asbury achieved first notoriety with a story that H. L. Mencken published in his magazine, The American Mercury in 1926. The story profiled 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 this woman 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 Common, and was arrested. Sales of the recently founded Mercury boomed, and Asbury became a celebrity. Asbury then focused his attention on a series of articles debunking temperance crusader Carrie Nation. The following year he wrote a biography of Francis Asbury.
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. In 1928, he decided to devote his time exclusively to writing. During this time, he wrote numerous books and magazine articles on true crime. He was also involved in screenwriting and wrote several plays which appeared on Broadway. None was successful. Asbury married Edith Snyder in 1945, a journalist ultimately employed by The New York Sun, where she spent most of her career as a reporter. After his final book The Great Illusion: An Informal History of Prohibition in 1950, he retired from writing. Asbury died on February 24, 1963 at the age of 73 from a chronic lung disease.
Recent years
The 2002 film Gangs of New York by director Martin Scorsese about the underworld and civil strife / riots among immigrant groups from the 1840s to the Civil War era 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. In 2008, The Library of America selected an excerpt from The Gangs of New York for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime. 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. However, Asbury's books generally feature lengthy bibliographies, noting the newspapers, books, pamphlets, police reports and personal interviews he drew upon for his works. Most are footnoted, citing source material by publication title, date and page. 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 City 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, D.C.
Filmography
Asbury is credited with several crime-thriller screenplays for Columbia Pictures, which he co-wrote with Fred Niblo Jr :
