When we think of gangsters in the twenty first century, many images come to mind. Many of these images have been glorified in our society. Teenagers often have a stigma of being seen as gangsters. Gangsters, or more commonly used in slang, "gangtaz", also support most American rap music. Baggy pants, bandanas and tacky, over sized jewelry is often associated with rappers and the teenage gangsters' dress code. Other well-known organized crime groups are Quebec's own Rock Machine and the even more powerful worldwide Hells Angels. In the seventies, the movie The God Father glorified and raised mob figures to an icon level. Now, there are three movies that make up The God Father collection, which has become a classic and developed a cult following. Presently, The Sopranos, an American TV show, is the latest glorification of the mob life. It seems that gangsters had been glorified and had much appeal in the 1990's. Yet, gangsterism originated in the Unites States of America during the nineteen twenties. Al Capone, arguably the most notoriously glorified gangster, was America's poster boy for gangsterism. The original gangster wore a much more chic uniform consisting of the classic black pine stripe suite, the shinny black shoes and the trademark hat-- the fedora. Why did gangsterism have such wide appeal in the U.S.A during the nineteen twenties? The major reasons for this phenomenon were: gangsters filled the need for alcohol during prohibition; the new ideals and views of the youth glamorized the gangster life; outraged by prohibition, common folk became criminals and therefore lost some respect for law which made it easier to support the gangsters.

The idea of prohibition was debated before the twenties in America. In 1840, Portland, Maine became the first "dry" city after having adopted a new motto, "Pleasure is sin". When World War One ended the American people adopted the same motto. Wanting to cleanse their country and psyche, they viewed alcohol as an impurity in their country. It was a popular belief, which propaganda turned into fact, that alcohol impaired the hard working American and their families. On January 17th 1919, the 18th amendment, named the Volstead Act, became a law stating, "No person shall manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, furnish or posses intoxicating liquor except as authorized in this act." America going "dry" was intended to purify the country, reduce crime, violence, unemployment and all other wrongs in society. Yet, it did the exact opposite. When alcohol became illegal, organized crime saw an opportunity to make money by fulfilling the public's need. The public did in fact turn to gangsters to supply them with their liquor. Organized crime became essential and very profitable. This encouraged the growth and joining of organize crime, because the need for liquor would always be there.

Another major reason for the rising appeal and acceptance of gangstersim during the nineteen twenties was a shift in opinions and ideals by the average American. The law abiding, hard working Christian became effectively a criminal once prohibition became law. The common people respected the laws and the officers who protected their homes, husbands, wives and children. But these ordinary citizens then became the targets of these respected laws because of a fairly harmless crime. Their views of a criminal changed when they themselves where seen as criminals in the eyes of the law. The people were committing a victimless crime. Thus the gangsters, who where supplying the means to this victimless crime, where no longer seen as criminals. This change of popular opinion made it sociably acceptable for organized crime to exist openly in the cities.

Yet, what created such wide appeal for gangsterism in the twenties was the era it self, filled as it was with new rebellious and outrageous ideas for its time. The country had just come out of a world war and its people wanted to cleanse and bring the innocence back to their nation. The youth, on the other hand, were tired of suppression and hardships. They had the need to rebel, hens the name The Roaring Twenties. This era was filled with many underground, outrageous events and actions that took place. This was the time of Harry Houdini, the master magician, who would chain or straitjacketed himself hanging from buildings to get the public's attention. This was the time of prohibition, which made Booze more popular then every, causing millions of average people to break the law. Many of the cocktail drinks we have today were developed in the twenties. The people had even created a scandalous dance for its time too, the Charleston. Its wildness created such controversy that it was banned in some towns and campuses. Just as was the cause with prohibition, this stigma made it more popular. Before Studio 54 in the seventies, there were hundreds of dance clubs where the elite would mix with the average Joe, and would dance and drink the night away. War was not being held in far away countries any more, but in the city streets with rival gangsters. 2,500 people had died because of prohibition. They where the gangsters, prohibition officers and average people who died from bad alcohol. Gangsterism and organized crime was not the only new and outrageous thing that created such wide appeal in the twenties. Gangsterism was just another thing that was glamorized by the rebellious attitude of the people; it just fit in with the times. One new fad could not exist without the other. Prohibition created the need for gangsters, and the willingness of the ordinary citizen to break the law legislated this need. This also created another need for a safe place to drink, which created the clubs. The clubs needed some entertainment that developed the scandalous dance, the Charleston.

To conclude, Gangsterism in the United States of America during the nineteen twenties had such a wide appeal because of three major reasons. Prohibition, being the most commonly offered, created a need for alcohol, thus also creating the new job of supplying illegal alcohol to the people. This new job became highly profitable and encouraged the growth of organized crime. It became sociably acceptable for gangsters to exist because the average person who took a drink was now also seen as a criminal in the eyes of the law. This created a loss of respect for the law in the eyes of Americans, thus dulling down the stigma of being a criminal. The era itself was also a time of rebellion. Gangsterism was another fad that went along with the time. All of the fads where linked with each other which made gangsterism essential. These new ideals put Gangsters on the same level of importance as the politicians, in the society and in the clubs.

Music has had a profound impact on this century. When Marconi invented the radio in 1870, a different musical era began. Music has evolved into different varieties and comes in many different forms. In a local record store, tunes can be found on tapes or on CDs. Records can be bought in a second hand store. One recording form, however, cannot be bought in a store. The mp3, the Internet's music form, has now downloaded itself into many peoples' lives. With all of these musical types, many players were invented and improved on for consumer satisfaction. From the radio to the mp3 player, musical devices have influenced humans socially. It has changed their views on music and changed their way of socializing.

Before the modern musical devices of today was the radio. Though the radio first came out in the 1870's, it was more widely spread and introduced to middle class homes during early 1900's for family entertainment. Families would sit in the living room for hours a time listening to the latest hockey game being broadcasted live on the radio or listening to some sort of classical music. Friends would be brought over for a little gathering for food and then all of the group would sit in the living room and enjoy the music and news of the A.M. radio. The radio offered a new way of getting news delivered (instead of a newspaper) and getting entertainment straight into the home.

The phonograph, later known as the Record Player, was next to appear. Though Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, the record player never really made it with middle class people until the 1920's. The record player was an advancement on music itself because now people could go out and buy music that their favorite singer or group had recorded. Music was now used at parties or celebrations more often then before because of a choice of music (for different occasions) and a knowing of what song or style of music will be on next. Families that had a record player in their home also were more likely to have a radio too (for more personal use). Deemed a failure at its launching, the Hifi record player made a big hit with the middle and upper class family. Upon researching with some older generation people, it was found that the record player was, to them, as good as any CD player found today.

Next along were the wonders of the four-track and the eight-track tapes. Bill Lear invented the eight-track tape in 1963. Originally made for airplanes and the first recorded messages, the eight-track tape was useless to many people. Its cost was high enough for only the 'higher' middle class and upper class citizen to buy them. Philips saw a moneymaking scheme come into mind and invented what is known as the modern cassette or the four-track (which some people still use). Philips cassette was 1/4 the size of the Lear eight-track, making possible small battery-powered versatile players that could be carried anywhere. This sparked a new wave of musical players, the personal players. Little tape players were being produced for people to bring along with them on picnics or to use in their rooms. Also with the wonder of the cassette, came the first chance to "Be Your Own Tape Maker". In 1965, with the purchase of some blank tapes, consumers were able to record their favorite songs from the radio onto a tape, or to record certain songs off of tapes they had borrowed from a friend or bought at a store. Cassette players were also offered as options on cars, allowing more versatile use of tapes.

With this invention called a tape player, people began to want a smaller, more compact, portable tape player. The consumer want had to be something that wouldn't break easily, was small enough to ride a bike or jog with, and was affordable. In 1979, Sony was the first company to invent the Walkman. The Walkman allowed consumers to be able to listen to their favorite cassettes on the run. It was small enough to fit in a purse or tucked in a jacket pocket. The Walkman was such a smashing success with the population it has been put down in history as one of the three most fashionable products of the century (along with the digital watch and roller skates). Changing listening styles, the walkman allowed people, for the first time, to be able to listen to whatever music they wanted to, wherever they were, instead of having to listen to any music available or playing.

CD players were very well known by 1983. By then there were multiple companies producing CD players with the ability to offer better sound quality and the holding of up to five CDs. Just as the Walkman had emerged because of a consumer demand, there was a consumer demand to make a small portable CD player. The first company to accept this challenge was Sony. After 3 years of research and many trials, in 1985, the first CD version of the Walkman was invented, known as the D-50. The D-50 was the size of a CD case and was an immediate hit with consumers. Within a year of the D-50's release, the number of CD's that were being sold tripled.

Many additions have been made since then, such as reducing the size of portable CD players, and improving sound quality. These new versions of the original D-50 have earned themselves the nickname of the Discman. The Discman had further changed how people interact. The Discman became known as the CD player for parties; by just attaching a few speakers through the Discman's headphone entry, sound can be played at such an amazing quality that a person would never be able to tell they're listening to a portable CD player. Also as an option on newer Discman models, two headphone jacks are available for easier listening to music with a friend. This has turned music listening into a group activity again, even with personal players.

When mp3's first came into the Internet scene in 1989, many people didn't even know they were there to be used. At the Fraunhofer Institute in Erlanger, Germany a scientist named Dieter Seitzer made the first mp3. The mp3, or Moving Picture Experts Group, Audio Layer III, has come a long way since then.

Kazaa and Morpheus, today's mp3 hub leaders, offer copyrighted mp3's for free. An Internet hub is a server that people can log onto and share files with each other. They can also be used for chat services. Before Kazaa and Morpheus, though, there were other basic mp3 providers like MIRC. MIRC was one of the first mp3 providers that started in 1994 that began to attract people to mp3s. As more people were bought into mp3's, bigger companies set out to compete in this fairly new industry. One of these companies was Napster. Napster and its mp3 hub began to change the music industries economy quickly. By allowing anyone with an Internet connection to be able to download free music, Napster created an online frenzy. It was all this downloading and swapping that attracted the attention of the RIAA, which represents the major labels and the owners of millions of valuable sound recordings. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, "All this free downloading is screwing us out of our deserved fees and royalties." The RIAA viewed mp3's as a huge threat, and has tried to shut down several mp3-related businesses (Napster, Kazaa).

On the other hand, according to RIAA, record sales were up a total of 8.3% while Napster was available for mp3 download. Once Napster was closed however, record sales fell 8%. As Joe Sevlin tried to explain, record sales had gone up because Napster had let people from everywhere get a taste of all sorts of different kinds of music. It also had allowed people to try before they buy. "Napster, my friend thinks, dispensed free samples. When something was appealing enough as a sound file on a home computer, people would go to a record store and buy the entire CD, just as they would if they had heard the song on the radio. Napster encouraged people to try new music they wouldn't necessarily spend money to check out." Without Napster, people couldn't have the same wide range of music for them to listen to, making it impossible for them to buy music they may have never wanted to purchase before.

The RIAA had good reason to think of mp3's as a threat. The mp3 had many advantages over .wav files and CDs. There are no security features associated with the mp3's, so many of them are posted and sent around on the Internet every day. Mp3 files are small enough to be downloaded quickly (less then a minute with a high speed connection) or even sent to a friend through email. Wav files, on the other hand, are much larger and have poorer sound quality. With this convenient way to get music, there is no need for us to even leave our home. Instead, with an Internet connection, people are able to download as much music as they wish.

An undeniable aspect of the mp3 is the impact it will have on our listening habits. Mp3's let people play a DJ role. With mp3's the population can make their own mix CD's and playlists containing all the different types of music they enjoy and artists they like. No longer does the consumer have to buy multiple CD's, pop them into the computer, and record each song that they wish to have. Also, by purchasing a CD Burner and a few blank CD's, the consumer can make his own CD's, thus eliminating the need to go out and buy an already made CD. Mp3's, originally made for computer entertainment, were quickly enjoyed by many people due to their small file size (4 megabytes) and ability to retain music sounds quality.

A newer way to listen to mp3's nowadays is through streaming audio. Windows automatically comes equipped with Windows Media Player which can connect up to a website and play mp3's. Other players like Real Audio can be downloaded at no cost. Streaming Audio has often been referred to as the Internet version of the radio. It comes in a variety of different sound choices, such as an instrumental Christmas music channel to a Ska-Punk Channel. One of the advantages of streaming audio is that the mp3's are never downloaded onto your computer. People who do not have enough hard drive to save mp3's or who work on publicly owned computers especially like this.

With the arrival of mp3s came a need for people to be able to listen to them without changing the mp3s into CD style. A new listening device was invented. One of the first mp3 players made was Rio. The Rio One (today's most popular mp3 player) was designed to weigh 2.7 ounces, have 160 MB of storage area and can play up to ten hours of music with one AA battery. There has been much competition building mp3 players to play mp3s for all of the different systems. Recently, to the delight of many iMAC users, iPod was the first Rio styled mp3 player for the Macintosh system.

With changes and additions to the consumer market, there is a constant need for improvements in what we have. Musical players have significantly changed our society during the twentieth century and possibly forever. These musical players have changed our socializing patterns and behaviors as well as affecting the economy.

In 1934, Leni Riefenstahl introduced Germany to Triumph of the Will, a masterpiece propaganda documentary on the Nazi party. The film destroyed her name and made America ignore her enormous talent. It could have easily destructed her zest and passion for life, her reason to live. However, Leni never gave up hope. She continued to do what she loved and overcame unimaginable obstacles. Still alive and active at almost a century of age, it was the triumph of her will that carried her through one of the most beautiful, horrible lives the world has ever known.

On August 22nd 1902, at the turn of the century, Helene (Leni) Bertha Amalie Riefenstahl was born in her family's apartment on Prinz-Eugen-Strade in Berlin. Her father, Alfred Riefenstahl, was a talented businessman dealing in heating and ventilation. Her mother, Bertha Sherlach, had been a part-time seamstress before she married. Leni grew up in Berlin with her parents until the age of 21. Artistic by nature, she studied Dance while her father watched on in disagreement. It did not take her long before she was performing in Munich, Berlin and Prague. Her passion for film making came as she was waiting for a subway train in Berlin. She was on her way to visit a doctor after her knee was injured due to months of dance routines. Lost amid her thoughts, she found herself mesmerized by a colorful poster promoting "Mountain of Destiny" a film playing in a nearby theater. She continued to stare at the poster in trance as her train passed by. Instead of going to see the doctor, she found herself in a theater watching vivid images come to life. The movie captivated her so much that she returned to watch it several times and it evidently later inspired her to becoming one of the few women in the directing field.

Weeks after viewing "Mountain of Destiny" Leni was lucky enough to meet the film's director, Dr. Arnold Fanck. They quickly built a relationship and Leni began to appear in many of his films. She was getting many opportunities that not many women got at the time. She was a working women, one of the first of her kind. Her dream was coming true. After acting in several movies, she turned to directing.

In 1934, Adolf Hitler, an admirer of her work, asked Leni to film a documentary of his Nazi party's rally in Nuremburg. Hitler, who had been named Chancellor a year earlier was hoping the film would encourage the German people to celebrate Naziism and the tremendous job he was doing as their leader. The film (Triumph of the Will) captured the brilliance of Leni Riefenstahl. The ground breaking angle shots she employed easily portrayed Hitler as a God. It captured Germany as a happy, organized nation which was rebuilding itself after hard times. Any American who viewed the film during the depression would have wanted to file a change of address and get out of the long soup lines. Little did she know, that due to Hitler's action in the years to come, Triumph of the Will would destroy all hope Riefenstahl had at becoming a successful director.

When Berlin hosted the Olympic games in 1936, Leni was given the honors of filming the momentous occasion. She rose up to the challenge and created a classic cinematic masterpiece. Extremely organized, using every single filming tool and method known at the time, also introducing slow motion, underwater diving shots, extremely high and low shooting angles, panoramic aerial shots, and tracking systems for following fast action. The film was entitled Olympia and in 1938 Leni took a voyage to America to promote the film.

Hollywood did not welcome her with arms wide open. Her tour was sabotaged by the Anti-Nazi League and a spy on her own team. Leni went out of her way to bring Herr Jdger with her to America. He already had many opponents in Germany due to his evolvement with a Jewish women. He helped sabotage her efforts to arrange the US distribution of her award-winning Olympia documentary. Many celebrities who we're to meet with the infamous director, canceled the appointments quickly for fear of being boycotted. Leni did not give up, she kept trying to persuade the media to see Olympia, and her perseverance paid off. She managed to get a screening where around 50 press people and Hollywood insiders viewed her film. They all had great things to say about it, but it was to little, to late. Leni's name had already been tarnished due to her evolvement with Adolf Hitler.

After the war in 1945, Leni faced Allied charges that she was a Nazi or a Nazi sympathizer. Her relationship with Hitler and her propaganda films had brought doom to her reputation. She was imprisoned three times and managed to escape to get to her mother's house in Austria where she was happily reunited with her husband, only to be arrested twice more. On June 3rd 1945, Germany's most notorious film director was officially denazified by the Americans, released "without prejudice". However, in 1947 she was arrested by the French, only to be released and denazified by them in 1949.

Even if Leni's name was free, her career and reputation remained tarnished. The French still kept material including Tiefland, a film she has recently shot. To make things worst, Luis Trenker, a former co-star with Leni in several films, now turned director and con-artist fabricated a so called "Hitler Diary" that Leni had "filmed". Meant to keep Leni from remounting in the public eye, it kept Leni in the courtroom for many years. Even the court ruling that the Hitler diary was a fabrication failed in stoping the false rumors and innuendo the diary had produced. After 14 years of heartache and struggle, Tiefland premiered in February 1954 in Stuttgart. It would be the last release of a new motion picture directed by Leni Riefenstahl.

Although she tried to continue to make films, Leni encountered to much opposition. Gifted in so many ways, she took up photography and has been traveling the world since Tiefland, even living with a African tribe. She took up scuba diving in the 1970s at the age of 72, and has continued underwater photo work into her 90s.

To this day, her name is still surrounded with controversy. 68 years after having created Triumph of the Will people still oppose her work. Corruption, arrest, spite, vengeance, ignorance, treason, fear of acceptance have plagued this talented women for decades. Most would collapse under so much hatred while still claiming innocence. Leni, on the other hand, has held on strong. Living the life she would have always dreamed of. Traveling the world, expressing her creative mind, outliving most of her critics and co-workers. Like her work, people must look at her from every angle, and look past the fact of who her employer was and embrace the genius of her mind. If a picture is worth 1000 words, then Leni's work has filled her with more then a lifetimes worth of stories.