Part I describes the origins of the three threads within the broad conceptual fabric called "crime" that are the primary sources of the current imagery of organized crime that evolved from 1890 to 1945. The first thread is the official government and reportorial approach to persons identified as members of the Mafia. Then there is the scholarly approach to a sociological concept called "organized crime." The third thread is the fictional approach to the professional criminal known as the gangster or racketeer of the 1920's and 1930's. There was little connection among all these concepts before 1950, when the Kefauver hearings were conducted. The labeling process that emerged from this period became official in the 1967 report of the President's Crime Commission. It assumed that the stereotype of the gangster -- now known as the Mafioso -- was a sufficiently accurate and precise label. As a result, three originally separate conceptual threads became intertwined. The real pattern of "crime" has been blurred ever since. Part II of the book concerns this developmental period. Part III examines the routes by which to assess changes in America's understanding of "organized crime" and "Mafia." Chapter notes and bibliographic listings, subject index.