12 Things You Didn’t Know about Ma Barker
Published in
3 min readDec 30, 2022
Well, and her family did engage in a family business.
The depression era led to the rise of some of the most iconic criminals in American history. For some reason, many are romanticized. One of these characters was Ma Barker. I’ve heard the name before and knew she and her family were involved in crime, but not much else. It’s amazing what name recognition can do for you.
Let’s check her resume a little closer. And we’re off!
1: J. Edgar Hoover considered her extremely dangerous, calling her “the most vicious, dangerous and resourceful criminal brain of the last decade.”
He also didn’t like the fact they each owned the same print dress, and she wore it better. Ok, maybe that wasn’t entirely accurate.
2: Ma’s four sons were Herman, Lloyd, Arthur and Fred. In 1931 they joined Alvin Karpis to form the Barker- Karpis Gang.
I’m curious, is forming a gang like forming an LLC? Is there a lot of paperwork involved? What happens if you want to dissolve the gang? What's the protocol?
