Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics

Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics

by Terry Golway
Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics

Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics

by Terry Golway

Paperback(Reprint)

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Overview

“Golway’s revisionist take is a useful reminder of the unmatched ingenuity of American politics.”—Wall Street Journal

History casts Tammany Hall as shorthand for the worst of urban politics: graft and patronage personified by notoriously crooked characters. In his groundbreaking work Machine Made, journalist and historian Terry Golway dismantles these stereotypes, focusing on the many benefits of machine politics for marginalized immigrants. As thousands sought refuge from Ireland’s potato famine, the very question of who would be included under the protection of American democracy was at stake. Tammany’s transactional politics were at the heart of crucial social reforms—such as child labor laws, workers’ compensation, and minimum wages— and Golway demonstrates that American political history cannot be understood without Tammany’s profound contribution. Culminating in FDR’s New Deal, Machine Made reveals how Tammany Hall “changed the role of government—for the better to millions of disenfranchised recent American arrivals” (New York Observer).

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781631490033
Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date: 03/09/2015
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 416
Sales rank: 676,174
Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

About The Author
Terry Golway was a journalist for thirty years, writing for the New York Observer, the New York Times, and other venues. He holds a PhD in American history from Rutgers University and is currently the director of the Kean University Center for History, Politics, and Policy in New Jersey.

Table of Contents

Introduction xiii

1 "Tammany Hall Belongs to Us" 1

2 Mass Politics 10

3 The Great Hunger 38

4 Civil War 60

5 A Tammany Riot 88

6 Tammany's Irish Reconstruction 105

7 Challenging the Gilded Age 132

8 To Hell with Reform 145

9 An Admirable Organization? 178

10 Murphy's Law 206

11 Frank and Al 234

12 The Battle of Two Governors 268

13 Legacies 286

Acknowledgments 309

Notes 311

Bibliography 333

Index 347

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