| Description |
1 online resource |
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text file rda |
| Contents |
"Tammany Hall belongs to us" -- Mass politics -- The Great Hunger -- Civil War -- A Tammany riot -- Tammany's Irish Reconstruction -- Challenging the Gilded Age -- To hell with reform -- An admirable organization? -- Murphy's law -- Frank and Al -- The battle of two governors -- Legacies. |
| Summary |
For decades, history has considered Tammany Hall, New York's famous political machine, shorthand for the worst of urban politics: graft, crime, and patronage personified by notoriously corrupt characters. Infamous crooks like William "Boss" Tweed dominate traditional histories of Tammany, distorting our understanding of a critical chapter of American political history. In Machine Made, historian and New York City journalist Terry Golway convincingly dismantles these stereotypes; Tammany's corruption was real, but so was its heretofore forgotten role in protecting marginalized and maligned immigrants in desperate need of a political voice. Irish immigrants arriving in New York during the nineteenth century faced an unrelenting onslaught of hyperbolic, nativist propaganda. They were voiceless in a city that proved, time and again, that real power remained in the hands of the mercantile elite, not with a crush of ragged newcomers flooding its streets. Haunted by fresh memories of the horrific Irish potato famine in the old country, Irish immigrants had already learned an indelible lesson about the dire consequences of political helplessness. Tammany Hall emerged as a distinct force to support the city's Catholic newcomers, courting their votes while acting as a powerful intermediary between them and the Anglo-Saxon Protestant ruling class. In a city that had yet to develop the social services we now expect, Tammany often functioned as a rudimentary public welfare system and a champion of crucial social reforms benefiting its constituency, including workers' compensation, prohibitions against child labor, and public pensions for widows with children. Tammany figures also fought against attempts to limit immigration and to strip the poor of the only power they had--the vote. While rescuing Tammany from its maligned legacy, Golway hardly ignores Tammany's ugly underbelly, from its constituents' participation in the bloody Draft Riots of 1863 to its rampant cronyism. However, even under occasionally notorious leadership, Tammany played a profound and long-ignored role in laying the groundwork for social reform, and nurtured the careers of two of New York's greatest political figures, Al Smith and Robert Wagner. Despite devastating electoral defeats and countless scandals, Tammany nonetheless created a formidable political coalition, one that eventually made its way into the echelons of FDR's Democratic Party and progressive New Deal agenda. Tracing the events of a tumultuous century, Golway shows how mainstream American government began to embrace both Tammany's constituents and its ideals. Machine Made is a revelatory work of revisionist history, and a rich, multifaceted portrait of roiling New York City politics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. -- Publisher description |
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A journalist, historian, and expert on the Irish American experience tackles the common stereotypes and presents a revisionist version of the notoriously crooked Tammany Hall, describing the crucial social reforms and labor improvements they contributed. |
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"Historian Terry Golway has written a colorful history of Tammany Hall, which takes a more sympathetic view of the organization than many historians. He says the Tammany machine, while often corrupt, gave impoverished immigrants critically needed social services and a road to assimilation. According to Golway, Tammany was responsible for progressive state legislation that foreshadowed the New Deal. He writes that some of Tammany's harshest critics, including cartoonist Thomas Nast, openly exhibited a raw anti-Irish and anti-Catholic prejudice."--Www.npr.org/2014/03/05/286218423/the-case-for-tammany-hall-being-on-the-right-side-of-history. |
| System Details |
Requires Boundless App. |
| Subject |
Tammany Hall (Political organization) -- History.
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Tammany Hall (Political organization) |
| Chronological Term |
To 1951 |
| Subject |
Irish Americans -- New York (State) -- New York -- Politics and government.
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Immigrants -- Political activity -- New York (State) -- New York -- History.
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Progressivism (United States politics) -- History.
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Municipal government -- New York (State) -- New York -- History.
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Politics, Practical -- New York (State) -- New York -- History.
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Political corruption -- New York (State) -- New York -- History.
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Immigrants -- Political activity. |
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Irish Americans -- Politics and government. |
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Municipal government. |
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Political corruption. |
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Politics and government. |
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Politics, Practical. |
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Progressivism (United States politics) |
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New York (N.Y.) -- Politics and government -- To 1898.
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New York (N.Y.) -- Politics and government -- 1898-1951.
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New York (State) -- New York. |
| Genre |
History.
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Electronic books. |
| Added Author |
Boundless (Digital media service)
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| ISBN |
9780871407924 : $40.00 |
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0871407922 : $40.00 |
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